Guerrilla warfare
by mistresssasori
Summary: Five years ago the Kanto PokeDex holders left Yellow alone to explore new regions. When they return they find their home has changed. Team Rocket has taken over Kanto and only a small band of rebels still fight. But Kanto is not the only thing on the line, and hearts are so very fragile. Viridian's Queen is rising. Time to greet the fight.
1. Prolog

**Guerrilla warfare prolog.**

"_In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman."_

_ Margaret Thatcher, British politician_

Yellow held the letter in her hand gently as she cried. She tried not to think about the fact that they weren't missing her at all. Two years ago, after they had heard about the newest Pokedex holders in that Hoenn region's battle against Rayquaza, Red had mentioned how cool it seemed to live in other regions and wanted to go take a look at them and their Pokémon. Green had decided to tag along so that his rival didn't get too much ahead of him and Blue had gone to 'keep the boys in line.' Green had left her in charge of his gym while they were off and they promised to see her soon. That was Two years ago and still they had not returned to Kanto. The letter in her hand said,

Dear Yellow,

_ Hello again! Green, Blue and I have left the Sinnoh region we were telling you about in the last letter we sent and are headed back to Hoenn to see the caves where the regi's sleep. Sapphire invited us back for her birthday or something… Anyway, how's my mom and Oak? Are the Johto holders okay? You are still checking in on them once a month right? Pika's gotten even stronger now! We will show you when we get back. Green still can't beat me and I can't tell why he tries… I mean, I'm the champion; I always win no matter what. And happy birthday, 'cause you'll get this letter some time in April and your birthday is in April right. Anyway we will not be coming home anytime soon because someone found a new region called Unova or something. We'll try to come back in time for your next birthday, but Oak wants us to help some professor named Jupiter out in this place. It's pretty cool anyway. They have a desert and a really icy cave. There is this deep chasm that we are going to be checking out after we get there from Hoenn. People have reported hearing deep growls around it. We need to see what it is for the safety of young Pokémon trainers everywhere! I should probably send this to you now…_

_I'll tell you how it went next time!_

_ Red._

Yellow sighed before putting the letter in a box made out of cherry wood. The box had a stain glass picture of a Pikachu on the front. It had been a birthday gift from her uncle Wilton on her birthday. Which was March 3rd. Crystal, on the other hand, was born on April 30th. She wondered sometimes if he even remembered her name, or if Green and Blue had to remind him to write to her so that she could keep track of them incase of problems. Yellow walked out of her uncle's house and into the Viridian woods, Chuchu following at her heels. She often wondered over the past five or six months about why she had had a crush on Red when she was younger. It was most likely left over from when he saved her as a child from that Dratini that had been rampaging about. She knew now that she no longer cared for him in such a way anymore. They had left her with a task and than forgotten her. It was her job to 'babysit' Kanto while the others were gone but she was getting bored with it. And worried. Rumors of Team Rocket were getting more common and they had already taken over Saffron City. Tomorrow she would attempt to stop them. If she lost this solitary battle than Kanto would be lost until the _real_ Dex holders returned. After all she was just there to find Red and return Pika to his trainer. Yellow sighed softly before setting off to get her team back from the poke center. She would need them tomorrow.

She got home to see Gold and Silver beside her house. As she got closer to them Yellow could hear them arguing about which path she might have taken into the Viridian forest. Silver was saying that she would take the less travel path as a child of the Viridian as she would know how to travel it safely. Gold thought she would take the bigger trail to pallet town to visit Daisy and Oak. She smiled as she walked up behind them. When Yellow got closer Silver turned around and nodded to her. Gold was startled to see her but happy none the less. "We heard about the Team Rocket rumors," He said. "Do you need any help?" Well, at lest some one loved her, Yellow thought. She said no, couldn't have them getting hurt when this was not their region, and walked them all the way back to the Indigo Platue where they crossed back to Johto. She had an uncomfterable feeling about the sharp looks Silver had been sending her. She couldn't lie like the thief could, and she knew it. Yellow hated to lie to them, Silver and Gold had kept her company over the past two years, but she wouldn't be able to stand the guilt if one of them or their Pokémon got hurt. 'It's better for me to do this by myself.' Yellow decided as she walked back to the house to rest. She would need her rest for the fight tomorrow.

The next day found Yellow surrounded by Team Rocket members vainly trying to stop herself from being bitten by an Arbok. She had been a fool coming to a place teaming with Rocket grunts by herself, Yellow realized. Her team might be powerful enough to take them all out but not all at once like this. She had been fighting all morning and past noon by then. The sun was on its' dissent when her party started having problems.

Ratty, her Raticate, was the first to have to be recalled or he would have fought until his heart burst. She had given up healing when she could hardly stand up without swaying. Dody was next. An Ekans had wrapped all three of his necks and was strangling the life out of him. She had returned him to get the Ekans away and didn't have the heart to send the poor dear back out into the fray. Omny used a blizzard to clear the group of Grimers away from Yellow as she sprayed an antidote onto Kitty. He promptly flew up and used sleep powder on a group of reinforcements coming to join the fray. More rockets was not what she needed right now… Bless Gravvy's soul, the Golem was using his high defense to plow through Rattatas and Raticates like there is no tomorrow, which if this fight doesn't end, there might not be, Yellow pondered. She recalled Kitty as he fell from the sky. The Butterfree has done his best, only to fall from grace at a well aimed poison sting. But they were all tired and slipping up. A Rattata leaped in front of Yellow and she heard his trainer call something out. Her Omanyte took the hit for her as Yellow's body was too sore to move. She recalled the fainted Omny and proceeded to direct Gravvy and Chuchu around the battle field. She felt sharp teeth tear into her arm from behind before Chuchu fried the poor rat, and Yellow by conductive contact. "At lest the wound is cauterized." She murmured before giving the man who had stepped up behind her a firm kick to the balls. She returned her now fainted Golem and continued with Chuchu. Yellow knew she wasn't going to make it, not with one injured Pikachu against over fifty Team Rocket grunts.

She turned to look behind her and saw a wave of sludge hurled by a Muk headed directly into her eyes. Then nothing but pain and blurry purple fuzz. Yellow thought she might have heard Gold shouting in the distance, but Gold wasn't here, he was in Johto where he belonged. Gold was no where near the hell hole Saffron City had become, and soon the entire Kanto region if she couldn't get back up.

**~The night before with Silver and Gold~**

Gold's mother let the two boys into her house and watched them troop up the stairs. She had invited Silver to live with them when she had discovered that he was living in the streets. He had moved into the guest bedroom and now was a permanent fixture in their lives. Mrs. Irene Pyrite, more commonly known as Gold's mother, simply smiled before turning back to the couch in front of her. On the couch was a young Murkrow holding a metal spatula in its beak. "Okay," she said to it. "I need that back for tonight's dinner, can you give it back?" The ebony bird shook his head. "Would you do it for a Klondike Bar?" Again the bird shook its head. Irene sighed before looking up at the tree that stood in front of her front window. "I'll let you steal the radio antenna again." She smiled as the Murkrow dropped the spatula into her lap and flapped out of the open window before rushing off to the soup on the stove. She could tell from the tense way they had smiled at her that the boys she watched over were worrying over something. Gold's mother calmly started preparing the food they would need if they were going on another adventure. She had overheard them talking about Team Rocket activity in Kanto and knew that they would go to help that young blond. Irene couldn't help but pity the girl. The Pokedex holders had left her alone in their region to go gallivanting off to other regions.

Irene sighed before stirring the soup. "Tomorrow will be troublesome," she murmured quietly. "The tides of war are changing." She stirred the soup as she watched the trees sway outside the window. 'I want to help fight,' she thought, 'but it's not my generations' fight this time.' She smiled at her 'house' Pokémon. "Bet Gold would never believe that his mother was a fighter in the last war, huh?" Irene took the soup off the burner. "twenty eight years ago trainers fought against Team Rocket to try and stop them from taking over Johto and Kanto," her hands moved numbly over the spices until she found what she wanted. Blank eyes caught in old memories watched as the nutmeg sprinkled into the soup. Not really seeing it but moving completely by routine brought from doing the same thing many times over. "And now we've passed that unfinished war onto our children."

She walked over to the living room. On a book shelf in there was two poke balls. Irene's hands wavered over them. "The last two from my original team." Her voice whispered in the silence that had taken hold of the room. "I feel bad sending them into battle again after they served me in the war." Gold's mom grabbed both poke balls. She would give them the Pokémon after dinner. Her days as a trainer might be over, but Irene would be rather die than let her son and Silver fight without someone she felt could keep them safe in their party's.

With that decided she called the boys for dinner, and hoped that it wouldn't be their last together.

Upstairs in Gold's bedroom two boys were arguing.

"I'm telling you Silv," Gold snapped as he flopped down on his bed, "Yellow wont do anything stupid. If she was going to take them on tomorrow she's ask for help."

Silver rolled his eyes. "When we were looking for her in her uncle's house I saw her bag."

"…"

Silver rolled his eyes at the blank face Gold was making. "It was packed for a long fight, hyper potions, antidotes, and everything else you might need." Gold's brow furrowed in thought.

"She wouldn't take a risk like that without backup." His voice had taken on a pleading tone, as if Gold was trying to convince himself.

Silver raised up one eyebrow. "She was lying when she said she wouldn't need help. Her eyes wouldn't meet mine," he said.

Gold sighed. "We can go fight with her, right?" All he got was a nod in return.

Silver stretched on the chair he was resting on. Gold's eyes honed in on the thin strip of pale flesh that was revealed as Silver arched his back. Gold's tongue traced his lips gently, wetting them as if he was parched. Silv stood up and got a pen and paper. "Lets make a list of what we need and we'll fly to Goldenrod for it all later." And with that the two boys put their heads together to work out what they would need for the coming battle. Suddenly Gold looked up. "Let's bring some first aid kits too." Silver added it to the list. "Better safe than sorry," he muttered as he reread the list. "Let's go shopping now."

Both boys stood up and started gathering their things to leave when Gold's mother's voice rang up the stairs. "Dinner boys!" Gold grinned before turning to Silver. "We can go after soup." Silver only sighed before staring down the stairs. 'Gold always did think with his stomach.' He thought as he sat down.

They all chatted about unimportant things through dinner. When Gold had finished his second bowl Silver got up and they started to leave. "Wait!" Irene called after them. "Cant mom," Gold called over his shoulder as they grabbed onto Silver's Honchkrow. "Gotta go shopping for some stuff." They had flown off before Irene could do anything. She groaned before storming back inside. "I'll just give them the Pokémon when they try to sneak out tonight." She knew that they would try to leave while she was still asleep because they didn't want to worry her. She would stay up and catch them then.

Silver opened the door to the house while Gold dragged in all the stuff they had bought. They house was dark and it appeared as if Gold's mother had gone to bed. The boys went to their separate bedrooms and started filling their packs with what they would need in the morning. When the clock hit midnight they hid everything in their closets before hitting the lights and scrambling into bed. A few seconds later Irene poked her head into Gold's room. She chuckled at her son's bad fake sleeping job before closing the door and going to check on Silver. He really did appear to be sleeping but she knew better. A sence of hearing trained from years on battlefields had allowed her to hear the boys jump into bed. She closed Silver's bedroom door and crept downstairs, closing her bedroom door on her way down so that they would assume she had gone to bed.

Then she settled on the couch to wait.

At the crack of three AM Irene was still sitting on the couch. She had taken to bouncing the Poke ball she was going to give to Silver in her left hand. A faint creak from the stairs was heard. Irene smiled as she watched Silver creep down them. He might not have made any noise at all if it wasn't for the heavy backpack that weighed him down. He walked pass the living room and froze. She smiled at him and tossed the Poke ball in her left hand at him, her smile morphing into a grin as he caught it. He frowned at it for a moment before pulling off one of his own Poke balls. She caught it as he passed it to her and looked down at his Kingdra. They exchanged nods before Silver opened his mouth to ask something. A sudden loud creaking noise emitted from upstairs. As one they looked up at the roof, listening to the loud footsteps and creaks that sounded as Gold 'sneaked' downstairs. They turned toward the stairs in time to hear a loud 'boof boof boof THUD.' Silver sighed and both him and Irene stared at the crumpled up form of Gold, who had fallen down the stairs while 'sneaking' out.

Gold's head snapped up when he heard a feminine giggle echo around the room. His face turned dead white when he noticed his mother giggling at him on the couch. Silver 'harrumphed' before walking out of the house. Gold got up and started walking to door as well. His mother grabbed his arm to stop him. "I don't mind you guys fighting," she said. "But give me your Sunflora and take this." She trusted the second poke ball into Gold's hands before taking Sunflora's ball off of his belt. She then shoved him out of the door and waved goodbye to the two boys. They each grabbed one leg of the Honchkrow's legs and it lifted off. Nether one looked back as they flew away; they both knew that if they hesitated they might not leave at all.

A/N: So that's the Prolog of my new story. Funny thing is this took me three weeks to write… Mothers wedding took up a lot of my writing time. (^.^;)If anyone can tell me what two puns were used in this chapter I'll give you a special mention at the start of next chapter next chapter! A hint would be that both happen in the same paragraph and have to do with Gold's mother, who I named because calling her 'Gold's mom' all the time sounds so rude…

Also if your confused about where in the Pokémon adventures Manga timeline the story fits into this should help.

Note: This story disregards what happened after the fight with Rayquaza, Archie, and Maxie. IE the Emerald arc and onwards didn't happen in this story. Wally still has the Pokedex and Sceptile. Fire red and leaf green arcs never happened ether. No one knows who Blue's or Silver's parents are. They instead started protecting their own regions from crime and stuff before Red, Green, and Blue went on a five year journey leaving Yellow behind to 'babysit' Kanto while they were gone. Crystal worked for Professor Elm while Silver and Gold trained and battled against Lance and Clair once a week. All three also worked on getting all of the badges from Johto.

That's actually part of the overall summary I wrote down when the plot bunny bit me. I'll list all the pairings and peoples ages in the story at the start of the first chapter.

Thank you for reading, please review!

~Misstresssasori.


	2. Chapter 1

**Guerrilla warfare chapter one.**

A/N: As promised at the end of the prolog, here is the pairings and ages of everyone.

Lance is 25 years of age.

Red, Green (Who I view as the male), and Blue (Who I view as the female) are 21 years of age.

Yellow and Crystal are 20 years of age.

Gold and Silver are 19 years of age.

Wally, Ruby, and Sapphire are 18 years of age.

The pairings that will pop up in this fanfiction are as follows.

Grantedshipping (Lance X Yellow)

PreciousMetalshipping (Silver X Gold)

brief Franticshipping (Sapphire X Ruby)

Tensaishipping (Ruby X Steven)

Originalshipping (Red X Green)

One sided OldRivalshipping (Blue X Green)

Crystal X Blue

Sapphire X Wally

If anyone knows the names of the shippings I didn't could you please drop a review or PM and tell me them?  
>And also, I promised I would name everyone who got the two puns I snuck into the prolog.<p>

Shockingly enough (To me at least) no one found both, or at lest no one reviewed or privet messaged me about both.  
>So I'd like to dedacte this chapter to Rikkamaru, who was only able to find one, but was the only one to review about them anyways…<br>If anyone wants to know, the two puns I put in where when Golds Mother said, "[w]ould you do it for a Klondike Bar?" and Gold's Mothers name. Iron Pyrite is a shiny yellow ore often known as fools gold because of how closely it resembles gold, however it has no monetarily value. I named Gold's mother Irene Pyrite as a play off of their family resemblance. It's just a joke for anyone with an intrest in Geology or rocks in genral…

I would also like to add a 'thank you' to Rikkamaru for the two shipping names you suplied and your huge reveiw!

_All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward._

_Ellen Glasgow_

Five years after Red, Green, and Blue left and three years after Team Rocket won the fight in Saffron City the Kanto Pokedex holders are called to Hoenn for an emergency. When Red got off the plane he was startled to see a crying Sapphire standing beside the plane.

"Saph?" Blue says softly. "What's wrong?" Sapphire jumped as if she hadn't noticed them coming.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice," she said softly.

"What's happened? Why are you crying? What's the problem?" Red fired off rapid questions to quickly for Sapphire to answer.

Ruby had walked up to them while Red was talking. "Wally's missing, and his Pokedex won't respond." Everyone seemed to freeze for a moment. Normally you could contact anyone with a Pokedex in your region, so a Pokedex not responding was cause for concern.

"Have you checked his parent's house?" Green asked as they all climbed into the car that would take them to Ruby's house.

Sapphire nodded. "We've also checked all his favorite hang out spots and asked his friends if they've seen Wally. No one knows anything."

Green frowned. "Even his cousin's house?"

Ruby shook his head. "We were going to but Wally was taking a month long vacation when he disappeared." At Greens raided eyebrow Ruby explained further. "No buddy would stay at home for their vacation, so why waste time checking there?"

"But what if his cousin knows where he is?" Blue pondered. "I would have started the search there simply because he lives there."

Ruby thought for a moment before leaning forwards to whisper to the driver quietly. He leaned back with a sigh. "We're going there now." There were nods and murmurs of agreement before everyone settled in for a long car ride.

When they arrived the Pokedex holders all trooped into Wally's cousin's house. She looked up, startled by having so many people she didn't know in her house, before smiling at Ruby. "Wally's not home yet," she announced. "I'll call you when he gets back if you would like."

Green stepped forward and looked at her sharply. "Do you know where he went?"

She smiled again. "Off to Johto to catch some new Pokémon."

The Dex holders thanked her before piling back into the car. "Back to the airport!" Ruby shouted as Sapphire phoned the airport for tickets to Johto. After she was done, having booked five tickets on the next flight to Johto, Sapphire lent forwards to talk to Red.

"Couldn't we have Yellow come and help the search?" Sapphire questioned softly. "She's been to Johto too, hasn't she?"

Red looked at Blue. "When was the last time Yellow checked in?" Blue shrugged.

"How should I know?" Green opened up Blue's bag and pulled out the box holding all of Yellows letters. He thumbed through them before frowning.

"It's been months." Was all he said.

Red looked worried at the news. "Hey Ruby?" Ruby turned to look at the original Dex holders. Red shot an upset look at the pile of letters before continuing talking. "We've seemed to have lost contact with Yellow. After we find Wally would you help us find her in Kanto?"

Sapphire looked up at them all then. "Yeah, we'll help. It's the least we can do after all your help." The rest of the car ride was done in tense silence. There were two missing Dex holders to find now.

When they got off the plane in Johto all the Pokedex holders pulled out their flying types and set out for Professor Elms lab. It seemed like a good idea to start their since he would know the most about Johto Pokémon. All together they set off for Newbark Town, flying their fastest as worry over their missing friends made their quest more urgent

The group walked quietly into the lab. They were startled by how busy it appeared to be. Lab assistants were running around chasing a bunch of Starmie. Green scoffed at the inefficiency of running after all the escaped Pokémon rather than using Pokémon to round them up. An Arcanine suddenly rushed into the room, closely followed by a blue haired girl in a lab coat. "Crystal!" Blue cried out. "What are you doing here?"

Krys chuckled softly. "I work for Elm now." She explained. "Why are you all here?" Sapphire opened her mouth to answer but Ruby beat her to it.

"We lost Wally. His cousin says he came to Johto for rare Pokémon." Crystal nodded before sitting on a lab table.

"That's the cute green haired boy, right?" When she got a nod as confirmation she stood up with a smile. "He went with Gold and Silver back to Gold's house about an hour ago. They were going to go Pokémon catching with him." Everyone sighed before heading out. This was turning out to be a wild goose chase across regions.

With heavy feet, from jetlag and lack of sleep, the group shuffled out of Elm's lab towards Gold's home. Sapphire fuming as she followed at the back end of the group. Red got there first and knocked upon the door. Everyone held their breath as they waited for one of the people they were searching for to open the door. As they watched the door gently cracked open and a woman stuck her head out. There were several disappointed groans when they recognized Gold's mother.

Blue decided to step up and take control then. "Hello Mrs. Pyrite, how are you?" Blue questioned as she moved to the front of the group. She froze as Gold's mother stuck her with a piercing glance. Mrs. Pyrite seemed to judge them all for a minute before stepping back and opening the door.

"You all look so grave; maybe you kids should come in and sit down before we talk." The group nodded before walking into the living room. As the Kanto Dex holder's settled down Sapphire and Ruby stayed standing. Ruby chose to lean on the book shelf and watch the others, while Sapphire took to pacing. Irene walked back into the room with a tray full of tea cups and a tea pot. She started to hand out the tea before putting the tray, which still held sugar and cream, on the living room table and settling down on a plush armchair.

Then she turned to glare at the silent young adults. "Why are you here?" Irene snapped at the now startled Pokedex holders. Sapphire, who had been tense since arriving in Johto, snapped towards Gold's mother with a look of murder upon her face.

"Wally's gone and your son was the last person to see him." She stalked forwards and slammed her hands down on the chairs arms, trapping Irene inside of the cage of her arms so that the woman couldn't avoid the question. Irene simply glared right back.

"Gold and Silver's whereabouts are none of your concerns, young lady." Mrs. Pyrite spat out before standing up and shoving Sapphire away and moving to the bookcase Ruby was reclining on. Irene stared at the bookcase as she spoke again. "They and the green haired boy went to Kanto when an urgent message from that blond girl came in." It was clear from the set of her shoulders that she wasn't going to give anymore information up to them. Green simply nodded in thanks before rising to leave. He was almost at the door when it opened all on its own.

Inside stepped a redhead no one had expected to see.

Lance nodded to the Dex holders before smiling at Mrs. Pyrite. "Irene, have you seen Silver or your son? I need to talk to them about where they keep disappearing off to."

Gold's mother smiled back at Lance but before she could answer Sapphire finally blew up. "Oh, I'll tell you where those three went." Saph snarled fiercely at Lance, making everyone but Lance and Irene stare at her in shock. "Those two took Wally off to visit Yellow in Kanto." She hissed out. "EVEN THOUGHT HE'S NEEDED BACK AT HOENN," she started to shout in rage, clearly mad that she had been dragged across regions for someone who apparently wasn't missing at all. "AND NOW THEY'VE MADE US HAVE TO COME ALL THE WAY OUT HERE JUST TO FIND THE DAMN BASTEREDS!"

Lance's eyebrows had been steadily moving to wards his hairline as Sapphire threw a hissy fit. "Control yourself young lady." He coolly said back. "You're shaming the Pokedex holders by acting like a spoiled child." Sapphire jerked back as if slapped before starting to wind up a punch. Green, who was still standing after getting up to leave, jumped between the two as if to stop the fight.

"We don't have time for this." He reasoned. "We need to get to Kanto before it gets to late to pick up Wally and the Johto Dex holders." When the others started to nod he continued. "And I want to make sure that Yellow hasn't messed my gym up to badly while we were away." He waited for Blue and Sapphire to stop giggling at his joke before turning to smile at Irene. "Thank you for the information and the tea Mrs. Pyrite." Green then turned and walked out of the room, leaving the rest of the 'search party' to follow behind him.

Red was the last to leave, and as he wandered out the living room Lance pulled on his arm. Red shot him a startled look before raising an eyebrow. "I want to come with you." Lance declared. "At lest until you find the missing trainers." Red seemed to think over the offer for a second before nodding slowly.

"Yeah, fine." Was all Red said before he continued on out side, where the rest of the group had mounted their flying types and were waiting for Red.

When Lance stopped beside Green and pulled out his Aerodactyl, Sapphire opened he mouth as if to argue. Ruby grabbed her arm and shook his head at her softly. "It's not our region, we're simply guests here." He reminded her before motioning for her to realize her Tropius, the only flying Pokémon between the two of them. As Sapphire and Ruby climbed up Pilo's side to sit behind is four, leaf like wings Irene watched them sadly. Lance left his Aerodactyl to stand by her side for a moment.

Irene watched the ginger carefully before speaking. "Do you remember the war?"

Lance shook his head. "I wasn't alive then," he stated.

"But you know _of_ it?" Irene questioned as she continued to watch the Pokedex holders get their Pokémon flight ready.

Lance nodded slowly, while watching Green's Charizard stretch it's wings. "Enough to be on guard of it ever repeating it's self."

Irene sighed before turning back towards her house and heading back inside. As she disappeared back inside she said one last thing to him before the door closed behind her.

"I fear it's already repeated it's self by now, and we've lost it this time around."

While the Hoenn Dex holders wanted to try flying over the mountains that separated Johto from Kanto, the Kanto triad managed to convince them that the mountains where to high to fly over. While that wasn't exactly true, they could be flown over by Pokémon, it got so cold up there that someone would have to have a fire type or **very** warm cloths to avoid freezing to death. Water froze very swiftly at that high altitude so Blue's Blastoise wouldn't be able to make the flight with them anyways. Over all the flight was not an option for the current group. They would have to take the water route, flying above it, and land at pallet town.

Lance was amused by how childish they acted. All the Pokedex holders were legal adults yet they squabbled like children. Yet he couldn't understand how they could argue when four of their comrades went missing after one sent an urgent massage to the others. Whatever that urgent message had said, it was enough to make two Johto Dex holders come running to Yellows aid, and it was bad enough for the Hoenn trainer to feel the need to go too. Lance was worried for Silver, Gold, and Yellow. The Hoenn trainer wasn't important to him at all, but he considered Silver and Gold friends.

While he was busy worrying over the missing Dex holders, Lance had failed to notice Green's Charizard flying closer, so Green's quiet greeting of "Hey" came as a surprise to him. That's not to say Lance jumped or flinched or even screamed; he was better than that. But Green noticed a faint tightening in Lance's shoulders after he called out a greeting to the champion.

Lance decided not to verbally answer but nodded to Green to show he had heard. Green nodded back before asking Lance a question. "Why are you so worried about Silver and Gold?"

Lance sighed, 'I knew someone was going to ask me this sooner or later' he thought to himself before answering. "I train with Silver and Gold regularly, Silver and I are distant family anyways, cousins of a sort, so we've always been close." At Greens raised eyebrow Lance decided to continue. "We've all hung out a lot these past five years and formed friendships, I noticed that for the last three years Silver and Gold have sometimes disappeared for days, occasionally weeks, on end without warning. They come back tired and hurt, with their Pokémon in need of medical care as well." Lance shook his head before continuing.

"They always say they got into a fight while visiting Yellow, but they never say who they fought." Green had his Charizard fly closer to Lance's Aerodactyl so that they wouldn't have to yell as loud to be understood.

"They could be fighting each other." He suggested to Lance.

"No," Lance said. "You haven't been here for five years, you haven't seen how close they've grow. They rarely use their Pokémon when they fight. It's more common for them to verbally spar now. And even if they where fighting with Pokémon, they wouldn't hurt each other like that. Silver came back poisoned from a poison fang attack one day, and Gold had marks from vine whips on his chest and arms once. They're being directly attacked by Pokémon." Green gasped and Lance nodded at him.

It was against the rules for a trainer to attack another trainer with Pokémon. Fights where suppose to be trainer against trainer and Pokémon against Pokémon. To directly attack someone with the intention of murder with a Pokémon was a life sentence in prison and confiscation of the convict's trainer license. It was a series crime that no one joked about. If Gold and Silver where being attacked by Pokémon than whoever they had been fighting were breaking laws, and were most likely trying to actually kill them.

Green groaned before turning back to Lance. "Whatever we're going to find is going to be hell, isn't it?" He asked as they flew side by side. Lance simply shrugged before urging his Pokémon to fly faster. Green just sighed before making his Charizard speed up as well. Whatever was waiting in Kanto for them, both trainers wanted to get there before anymore damage was.

The only question was, would they be too late?


	3. Chapter 2

**Guerrilla Warfare Chapter Two**

A/N: Thank you all for your lovely and encouraging reviews. There what made me finish this chapter so quickly! (They also helped me get over my writers block ^_^')

_The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla army wins if it does not lose._

_Henry A. Kissinger_

The rescue group swiftly flew across the shore line that extends the length of the base of the mountains that acted as a dividing wall for Kanto and Johto. Green and Lance led the group; constantly pushing the others to fly faster to keep up with the two worried trainers. They decided to cut a diagonal line to Viridian City over a part of the Viridian forest to thick to be hiked through. Lance hoped that by using a route too treacherous to be taken by land they might cut a few hours off their trip time.

As they flew the group saw many astonishing things. The once fertile and green Kanto was now full of immense desolate fields; some of which were full of carcasses of the deceased.

The Pokedex holders who had been complaining of the fast pace were now silent. Deep within the more instinctual parts of their minds the young trainers knew that Viridian City would probably be worse that what they were viewing now. Subconsciously none of them really wanted to see what had happened to the once peaceful region.

By then the rescue group had flown into a valley. At the end of the valley, when they had flown out of it, lay Viridian City in ruins.

Lance was frozen. The city he had grown up in was partly destroyed. The northern half was fine; he could see people moving around and cars passing by. It wasn't like the city was fully gone. But the southern half; Lance's eyes swept over it as he heard gasps of surprise and swearing behind him.

What had once been the residential half of the city with schools, houses, parks, and even a few small farms was gone. In its place was ruble and devastation. There were holes all over as if someone had set off bombs randomly; the mark of powerful Pokémon fighting.

Lance moaned softly in despair; he was a child of the Viridian forest, and this city was home to him. To see it in ruins like this hurt him.

"Lance?" someone called softly. He turned to look at the person, who turned out to be Green, and sighed before nodding. "Should we land in the destroyed half to gather our wits?" Green asked softly with an understanding look on his face. Lance simply nodded in return still unable to respond verbally because of the pain in his heart.

Green made a hand signal to Red and the entire group descended until they could land behind a pile of broken wooden boards and pipes, which looked vaguely like it used to be a house. The group had just returned their Pokémon when a small giggle caught their attentions.

Standing in front of the group was a petite girl. She appeared to be around eight or nine years old but stood calmly, as if undaunted by the adults around her who were studying her with narrowed eyes. She wore a black sun hat with a yellow bow on it and a blue sun dress. Her eyes flickered down to Blue's belt and the Pokeballs attached before widening. The girl gasped before pulling a Pokeball from a brown leather satchel hanging from her shoulder.

"You'll never capture me Team Rocket!" She cried before tossing her Pokeball to the ground. The Pokémon released was huge. It towered over everyone but Lance and appeared to be made of rock. Green pulled out her Pokedex and scanned the mineral giant. "Gigalith," The robotic voice of the Pokedex stated. "The Compressed Pokémon. The solar energy absorbed by its body's orange crystals is magnified internally and fired from its mouth. Compressing the energy from its internal core lets it fire off an attack capable of blowing away an entire mountain."

"That looks nothing like the Gigaliths we saw in Unova." Blue shirked as the Gigalith tossed its head from side to side.

The Gigalith the group was fighting was strangely colored. Normal Gigaliths are blue with orange crystals but this one was not. It had purple rock for its main body and its compression crystals were a very light blue.

"You idiots!" Green yelled as he released his Charizard from its Pokeball again. "It's just a fucking shiny Pokémon; now pull out a Pokémon and help." Lance simply sighed before pulling out a Pokeball and releasing his Gyarados into the fight.

Greens Charizard was flying around the Gigalith and blasting it with Flamethrowers. It swooped to close to its opponent and was hit in the chest with a Smack Down attack. When the Charizard hit the ground the young girl cried, "Now Gigalith, Bulldoze attack!" The Gigalith squatted down before running full force at Greens Charizard. It bowled the Charizard over and sent it flying through the air only to crash into a huge chunk of concrete sticking strait up in the air from the ground some ten meters or so away.

Suddenly the Gigalith was thrown across the space they were fighting in by a well aimed Hydro Pump courtesy of Lances Gyarados.

"Stand back up Gigalith, and use the glowey move!" The girl called to her Pokémon.

The Gigalith threw its head back and cried out "Lithhhhh" as a ball of white light began to gather in its open mouth. Its head then snapped forwards and the ball of light released a huge white beam. The beam tore a several foot deep trench into the ground as it swept towards Sapphire and Ruby. Both of them flinched before throwing their hands up in front of them; they were to terrified to even remember that they had Pokémon to protect themselves with.

Then a voice called out "Iron Defense Blastoise" and a Blastoise threw it's self in the way of the beam of light with its shell facing the beam. It was pushed forewords a few steps before the beam faded. Blue then told the Blastoise to return, since she could see that it had gone through a large amount of damage to protect the two Hoenn Dex holders.

The Gigalith simply stood panting tiredly after the attack.

"Yeah!" the girl shouted happily. "We did it Gigalith! We did the glowly attack without accidently backfiring it on ourselves or swallowing it!" She ran up to the exhausted Gigalith and jumped up to hug its neck; her feat hung off the ground as she did.

"Excuse me child," Lance called over to the victorious girl. "But you do know that the move you used is called Hyper Beam, right?"

She released her Gigaliths neck and smiled at Lance. "Uhuh, I do! It's our super powerful glowey attack we always mess up."

Lance simply face palmed himself at her answer. "Can you tell us what happened to Kanto in the last five years?" he asked the child as he recalled his Gyarados.

She looked him up and down, as if searching for proof that he was a Team Rocket member in disguise before smiling at him. "Three years ago Pokedex holder Yellow tried to stop team Rocket from taking over Kanto by herself. She failed." The smile fell as the girl turned around to look at the ruble surrounding the area they had been fighting in. She walked forwards and gently began touching pipes sticking out of a pile of wood.

"A resistance group was created just days after Team Rocket took over Kanto. At first it was just three extraordinarily strong trainers but in the last three years it's grown to have many more members from many different regions." The girl ran her hand down the length of a pipe until she reached its base. She then yanked the pipe out of the pile and ruble and stood back. Soon water began to flow from where the pipe had once been.

The girl took off her hat and held it under the flow of water. Her hair spilled down her back. It was the same shade of blue as her Gigaliths spikes and fell in waves down to her mid back. Once her had had filled with water she walked over to her no longer panting Pokémon and held the hat so that he could drink from it. While her Gigalith drank she told them to water their Pokémon too. Lance moved to follow her instructions first and the rest soon followed.

After all the Pokémon who had fought were watered, and in Blastoise's case healed as well the girl shoved the pipe, which Lance noticed had a metal ball welded on the end, back into the hole she had removed it from. The water flow stopped.

"Why is there clean water in a mound of ruble?" Green asked as he examined the heap of broken timber, stones, and pipes.

"There's a tank hidden inside of there". The girl said softly. "The Pipe which plugs the opening has three groves cut into it so we can tell it apart from the rest of the junk." She walked over to a boulder and sat on it calmly. "It's there for resistance fighters so that they don't have to go into town to water there Pokémon or for the orphans of the Great Takeover to drink and get water for bathing or cooking." The young bluenette then pointed at the six mountainous piles of ruble that surrounded the area the rescue group had landed in.

"Do you see the pipes connecting those piles to this one?" She asked. "There are big tubs for collection of rain or snow melt water at the top covered in a fine mesh screen to keep out larger debris. The pipes run to the top of the plastic tank in the small mound right here where it's screened through a water filter before being deposited into the tank. You pull the pipe out of the opening and get clean water."

Looks of shock and murmurs of "Wow." or "Cool." were issued from the group as they thought of what the resentence did to undermine Team Rockets control. Green frowned for a minute before turning to look at the young girl. "What happens to the tank during winter when it freezes or summer when the water in it evaporates?" he asked.

"It's very simple really," The girl announced cheerfully as she crossed her legs. "During summer one of the resistance fighters takes his Glalie and uses Ice Beam on all the tanks to keep them cool while during winter a pack of Vulpix and Ninetales live here. They keep the different tanks warm and stop them freezing because they used to be owned by a young fighter. She was killed by Team Rocket but her Pokémon continued her task in her honor."

Red frowned before pointing at the girl. "You know _way_ too much about this resistance." He stated while watching her for any sings of lying.

The girl simply smiled at him. "I'm non combat resistance member Elli, nice to meet you!" she said cheerfully. She opened her mouth to say more but was interrupted by the sound of cackling Gastly. Elli rolled her eyes before pulling out her Gigaliths Pokeball. With it loosely held in her hand she stood up and hopped off the rock she had been sitting on. "My guardians want me to go back to Viridian HQ now." she said grudgingly. Her shiny Gigalith waltzed over and nuzzled the Pokeball before being summoned back inside. Elli placed the ball back in her satchel before looking strait at Lance.

"You'll want to hide your Pokeballs." She said sympathetically. "Only Team Rocket members and people with permits are allowed Pokémon now. If you're caught with yours you'll be thrown in jail or forced to work in labor factories." The sound of a cackling Gastly filled the air again. Elli sighed before howling like a Growlithe. Then she waved and took off running.

Before she ran out of sight she stopped and waved at them. She yelled out, "I'll tell Viridians Queen that your on our side, so don't worry over other resistance members attacking you by accident like I did." before running off in another direction and disappearing from sight swiftly.

Sapphire turned to Blue and asked what Viridians Queen was but Blue only shrugged. "I've never heard of it." She said before withdrawing her Blastoise and stashing the Pokeballs in her back pack.

"I've never heard of it ether, and I'm the Viridian gym leader." Green announced as he walked by, his Pokeballs already hidden in his bag as well.

"She's a legend." Lance explained to the Pokedex owners. "She's supposed to be the only child of the Viridian forest with the ability to talk to the forest. They used to say that she was the most powerful of us because of that and that she'd bring the world to its knees if she had to."

"How could she do that?" Ruby asked in a confused voice.

It was Red who answered. "She is supposed to be responsible for keeping peace and balance in Kanto plus it's said that she created bloody wars and killed off thousands if that's what it took to end the fighting once and for all." When Red saw the slack jawed looks from his friends he shrugged. "My mother used to tell me about Viridians Queen as a bed time story when I was younger. She was born in the city but moved to Pallet Town to marry my dad."

Lance nodded before taking up the explanation again. "She's said to be able to ask any Pokémon for anything and get it simply because of who she is." Then he stopped and chuckled. "Kind of like Yellow actually, but she's supposed to be several hundred of times more powerful. The elders used to say that she could control people too, but it would make her sick after awhile."

Lance shrugged before moving towards the non wreaked half of the city. "I guess the leader of the resistance is using the name to scare people into helping them."

The group nodded in agreement before setting off towards the normal half of the city to learn as much about this changed Kanto as possible. "I want to find out if my gym is still standing." Green offhandedly announced as he walked forwards. There were sounds of agreement and laughter from everyone before they continued walking.

Before the spot of the battle with Elli had fully disappeared from sight Lance looked back at it and frowned. 'It can't be Viridians Queen,' he thought, 'her powers only fully show when she goes through a traumatic experience and sacrifices something. What resistance would let a def, blind, or amputated women lead them.' He shook his head before rushing to catch up with the rest of the group. 'Besides, if it was Viridians Queen I would have met her by now. The children of the forest are always drawn to their Queen.'


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: I'd like to note that this chapter is _**NOT**_ a song fic. The lyrics are really being sung by one of the characters. Plus, to answer Rikkamaru's question from his/ hers last review. The trainer with the Vulpix and Ninetails is really dead. Do **not** expect a plot twist coming from that direction or else you'll be waiting a very long time. Also, I'M SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG! First I had exams, then writers block, then I crashed the computer… twice… in one day… ^.^'

A/N 2: I'd like to thank Kikumon for the grammar help! I really appreciate the help. My older sister normally proof reads my chapters for me, but she didn't go over this one. (I guess it showed…)

As for your questions; the water tanks are only in Viridian as of now. I believe that since Pokémon replace the normal animals, which means there aren't any real animals in the Pokémon world only Pokémon, that unless everyone suddenly became a vegetarian everyone would have to eat Pokémon (Since those are the animals of the world), or eat man made food.

Also, Team Rocket controls all of Kanto. That means the media as well. So no, the take over was not common knowledge outside of Kanto.

_There is not a blessing that may not become a disaster, nor is there not a disaster that may not hide a blessing._

_ ~ Author Unknown._

The 'rescue' group consisting of Lance, Green, Red, Blue, Sapphire, and Ruby walked into the half of Viridian City that wasn't destroyed after their talk with Elli.

Green led the group as they looked for the Viridian city gym; worry clouding his face as he sped up his pace. When they came to the street the gym had once been on green froze in shock. The gym was gone. Well, truly it was not gone per say, it had been simply changed into something different. The gym had been renovated into a bar.

Lance looked at Green and shot a sympathetic look at him. They could all see the shock on Greens face at seeing his once proud gym turned into a drinking den.

"Should we go in?" Blue asked softly as she came to stand beside Green. Without waiting for an answer she started walking into the pub. The sign above the former gym, which at one time had pointed out that the building had once been a gym, now read 'Viridian City Hall and Pub.'

The group walked in and picked a table. It was in a shadowed corner and had seats for six. A waitress stopped by to take their orders. She was petite with her brown hair styled in a pixie cut.

"May I take your order?" she asked without looking up from the notepad held in her hands.

Blue chose to order first. "One Tauros burger and fries please." She said while smiling at the waitress. Ruby and Red requested the same. The woman nodded and wrote their orders down before turning to the side of the table where Sapphire, Green, and Lance sat.

"I would like the roast Farfetch'd breast but with an Oddish and Bellsprout salad instead of fries." Sapphire butted in swiftly when the waitress tried to ask Lance what he wanted. "And add lemonade to my order as well." The waitress looked up at Sapphire and scowled at being interrupted.

"Anything else you would like?" The waitress asked curtly. Green drew in a sharp breath when he saw the woman's face. She had a Meowth coin tattooed onto her forehead. Sapphire shook her head no at the waitress's question. The Meowth waitress looked at Lance and requested his order next.

"I'll take a dish of buttered Kingler with a side of boiled Exeggcute salad if it's not too much trouble." Lance said in a husky voice. The waitress blushed and fluttered her eyelashes at him.

"Of course it's not too much trouble." The waitress purred out as she flashed her cleavage at him.

Lance shot her a slow smirk before speaking again. "As lovely as your pleasant company is, my dear, we need to finish ordering so that we may eat." At the woman's pout Lance flashed the waitress an arrogant smile. "Perhaps later," he murmured, "we can continue this pleasant _conversation_."

The waitress twittered at Lance before taking Greens order of a grilled Magikarp burger. After she left, Sapphire started berating Lance for flirting with the waitress. "We have better things to be doing than trying to get laid Lance." She snapped at him.

"He was trying to distract her." Red announced suddenly. Everyone turned to him. "Green's reaction clearly said he recognized her from her tattoo; Lance noticed and flirted with the waitress to distract her from Green." Lance nodded in agreement with him while Red looked everyone in the eye.

"We are the Pokedex holders." Red stated to the assembled group. "People are going to resent that we didn't stop Team Rocket." He sighed before looking up at the roof. "If we can avoid being identified than we should. Stick to the shadows and draw the least amount of notice to yourselves as possible."

"She was a trainer in my gym." Green said all of a sudden. "I asked her to help out Yellow while I was gone." The group was silent after that; they sat around the table and thought over the change in the world now that being a trainer was illegal.

When the waitress returned with their food everyone ate in silence. Because they were silent, the entire group noticed when the people in the crowded pub began to fall silent as well. They turned to see a blond woman walking onto the stage. She was of short and slim with a sinuous and lithe figure. She walked with her head down and touched everything is her reach. She didn't stop until she found the juke box. She slid in some money and flipped through the songs. She listened to the computerized voice name them each before switching to the next. Finally she picked a song and settled onto a stool which rested on the raised dais which used to hold the gym leader. The music started and the woman started to sing.

Sapphire had turned back towards Lance, most likely to start another fight, when the woman started to sing.

The room froze.

The woman's voice was barely above a whisper as she sang, yet the entire room felt compelled to look at her. Her tone was supple, almost fragilely delicate, as her words saturated the room.

"_Lay me down.  
>Wash this blood off my hands for me while I cry out.<br>Don't let me die before I go to sleep.  
>And I can't keep going,<br>but I cannot start again."_

The emotions that poured off her were suffocating. She seemed so mournful, sitting there on the dirty stool as she sang her heart out without even an emotion crossing her face. If she had not been singing, one would have thought her made of stone. Even Lance was frozen; he seemed mesmerized by the strange woman. His body leaned unconsciously towards her as the blond sang.

"_This road I walk is paved with broken promises I've made;  
>at least a million times I've fallen.<br>But never will I break._

The lyrics were sung with a power, as if they were some sort of unspoken forewarning to all who listened. While the final line of the verse was being sung, the woman's face had filled with determination. It was as if she was actually declaring that she could not be broken.

Lance was entranced. He continued to hungrily watch the woman sing.

"_These walls I make  
>they could hold me in and hold me back today.<br>Oh, but tomorrow's new and I'll walk right out and walk right over you  
>If you hear me screaming,"<br>_

Lance left his seat, as if drawn over to the woman. He wove his way across the pub towards her; moving through the accumulation of bodies with the elegance of someone who had honed their body to be a living weapon.

"_Please don't let me fall again."_

By then his burgundy eyes had met her cloudy amber ones and everything else seemed to almost fade out of existence for the two of them. Lance had, by then, come to stand directly in front of the stage, and the woman seemed to have eyes only for him.

"_This road I walk is paved with broken promises I've made.  
>At least a million times I've fallen,<br>but never will I break."  
><em> 

She leaned forwards as she sung, and a look of curiosity passed across her face. The lady stood up from her stool and walked towards Lance. The next lines she sang seemed directed at him, like she was speaking them towards him.

"_My time is on its way.  
>I'll fall but I won't break."<br>_

He felt pulled towards her. The other Pokedex holders watched as Lance seemed to move in tandem with the strange woman. They seemed to almost be connected, as if they were twins or two parts of some sort of whole.

"_This road I walk is paved with broken promises I've made;  
>at least a million times I've fallen,<br>but never will I break."  
><em> 

She walked passed him, breaking the magnetic connection between the two of them, and sang the last verse as she headed towards the back room. Lance watched her go, looking as if he were fighting not to follow her, as the woman entered the back room of the bar.

"_This road I walk is paved with broken promises I've made;  
>at least a million times I've fallen,<br>but never will I break."  
><em> 

Slowly, conversations started back up inside the crowded pub. The enchantment of the woman's voice seemed to die away, and Lance returned to the table looking dazed and lost. He settled back down into his chair slowly before turning to look at Green.

"Do you know who she is?" Lance asked frantically.

Green shook his head 'no' as the group continued to stare at the now vacant stage. "I've never seen her before in my life." He said.

Sapphire hesitated for a second before asking her query. "Did you see her eyes?" She questioned. "They were all weird and misty, kinda like there was a film of some sorts growing on them."

"She's blind." Lance explained. "Or at least partly blind." At Sapphire and Ruby's confused faces Lance extended his answer. "Sometimes people who suffer a blow to the head, or get something in their eyes which contaminates them go blind. Their eyes often appear cloudy or misty as i8f there is some sort of filmy substance covering them." He turned to Green again. "Are you sure you haven't seen her before? Think hard, it's been five years."

Green sighed before shaking his head. He was about to speak when Red cut him off. "I've seen her before." Red said calmly. "I don't know where, and I don't know when, but something is really familiar about that woman." He groaned before tipping his head back to look at the ceiling. "I feel like I should know her name thought." He complained. Red looked imploringly at Green. "I _know_ we've seen her **somewhere**."

"Maybe you saw around town a few times in the past and her face just sort of stuck." Blue suggested softly. Abruptly she jerked forwards. "What's that?"

The 'rescue group' turned and looked as one, only to see a small yellow blur racing across the floor. Pika, who had been hidden in Red's backpack, jumped up onto Reds lap as the yellow blur came to a stop. It turned out to be a Pikachu with a pink flower tucked under its ear. The Pikachu had come to a stop right at the fight of the woman from early, who had apparently reentered the room while the Dex holders had been trying to figure out who she was.

Pika suddenly jumped up and raced over to the female Pikachu. He started nuzzling her while the strange woman looked on. She smiled before picking Pika up and walking towards the table Red and the others were sitting at. When she arrived at the booth she set Pika on the table top before bending over him.

"You shouldn't run away from Red like that Pika," she said with a giggle. "Not everyone who will find you will be a comrade." Pika just nodded to her before nuzzling her forearm. The flowered Pikachu leaped up onto the table top and snuggled against Pika before turning to look at the blond lady again. Pika twinned his tail with the other Pikachu and sniffed her. "Pika!" the woman cried before giggling. "Don't crowd Chuchu dear."

"Y-y-yellow?" Red stuttered in shock. She simply winked at him before running out of the pub. Everyone swore before jumping up to chase her outside. Lance simply rolled his eyes before leaving money on the table for their meal and following the others out side.

He got outside in time to see the 'rescue group' frozen in front of the ex- gym. Yellow was standing between two young men. One was tall and pale with shockingly crimson tresses. His silver eyes were cold as ice while he scrutinized the group in front of him. Lance let out a sigh of relief at seeing Silver again before turning to look at the other young man. He was a little shorter than Silver and was tanned. The man was wearing a black and gold ball cap over his explosively spiky black hair. The raven haired man had gold eyes and a look of blatant amusement on his face. Not that Lance expected anything different from Gold.

Yellow smiled softly at all of them before spinning around. She looked over her shoulder before waving at them and taking off. Silver and Gold swiftly followed her down the side alley she had slipped into. Green snarled an "Oh, no you don't!" before taking off after the triad. Lance and the rest rapidly followed.

Never let it be said that Viridian City does not have its own fair share of back passage ways, side alleys, and rooftop thief routes. The 'rescue group' was forced to run through mud and sewer muck while chasing Yellows triad. It only got worse when the three seemed to speed up. When ever the Dex holders lost sights of the triad they'd come across Gold or Silver reclining on something while waiting for the group. Whenever that happened, the young men would start running again before the group could catch their breath.

It seemed like the group had been running for hours when they entered a section of the town which had been destroyed. At first they thought they were just running through a new desolation zone, but after a while the group started to notice several strange things. The first one to notice that the strangeness of the area they had been lured into was Lance. When he finally realized what he was seeing, Lance called for the group to halt.

"We're standing in the middle of a maze of tunnels." Lance told the others.

Sapphire snorted when she heard that. "Yeah right," she sneered. "Where the hell would someone have room to hide a bunch of tunnels with all the mounds of rubble lying around?" The brunette pointed the maze of junk piles all around them as she spoke.

Lance simply rolled his eyes before marching to a door lying on one of the mounds. He twisted the door handle and pulled it open to reveal a concrete tunnel. "They hid them _in_ the giant piles of junk." Lance told Sapphire drolly as he moved to enter the tunnel.

"We would appreciate it if you didn't do that." A familiar and childish voice sounded from behind them. Everyone whirled around to see Elli standing behind them. She smiled at the group as she skipped over to Lance. "Yellow asked me to guide you to the onyx road." She explained as she shut the door. "If you follow it you'll end up at headquarters."

With that the bluenette flounced off to the west, and the group had to follow. She bounced in front of them for a while before abruptly stopping in front of a path. It was made out of some sort of shiny black stone and about two people wide.

Elli waved at the path with a cheerful grin. "This is the onyx road!" she added when she saw their confused looks. "Follow it until it splits in three and pick the cobblestone path. That'll take you to Wally; he'll guide you from there."

Elli made as if to scamper off some where else but Sapphire wrenched her backwards by her arm. "You know where Wally is?" She snarled at the younger girl.

Elli frowned at Sapphire for a moment before looking at Ruby. "Wally will meet you at the top of the cobblestone path. He's been eagerly awaiting a tomboyish brunette and a boy with a white floppy hat." With that said the girl jumped up onto a pile of rubble and ran off.

Red watched her run across the junk before turning back to his group. "Might as well get going." He pointed out. There was a round of grumble, but the group did set off down the road. It was slippery beneath their feet and the sun brutally reflected off the glossy surface into their eyes. The group swiftly figured out that the road was a defense for the rebel headquarters. It was simply impossible to run on it without falling flat on you behind.

Because they couldn't speed up on the road, it took the group almost half an hour to reach the intersection. There they were met with three paths. One was dirt, and seemed to lead back where they had just come from. Blue pointed out that it could be the route the rebel's use, since the onyx road was clearly not capable of being travelled at high speeds.

There was also a gravel path witch led to another intersection from what the Pokedex holders could see. The last path, which was in-between the other two, was cobblestone. The group chose that one as per Elli's instruction.

It took them up a large hill covered in grass and shrubs with the occasional tree as well. They hiked up it until the came across an old house. It was three stories tall and done in a Victorian style, but was clearly in disrepair. The deep violet paint was peeling and all the shutters were boarded over with wood.

"This is the house that the city's wise woman lived in." Green added as they approached the house. "She used to give herbal remedies to all the pregnant women in town for their morning sickness and stuff."

Lance smirked when he heard that. "She was a daughter of the Viridian forest." He added. "She taught me most of the herb lore I know." He ignored the snigger from Blue at the thought of Lance knowing herb lore.

Then the cobblestone path took a corner, and the 'Dex holders were given a clear view of the dwellings front door.

Standing in the door way is Wally.

He was leaning across the open door way with his shoulder on one side and his feet on the other. Effectively blocking the group's way. Wally nodded once at Red before looking at the group as a whole. He raised his hand and gave them all a mocking two finger salute. Then with a sarcastic grin he said one word.

"Yo."

The group stared.


	5. Chapter 4

**Guerrilla Warfare Chapter Four**

A/N: Short chapter, but I'll have the next one out when I return from Cadet Camp in six weeks.

And I'd like to thank my sister Pony25 for beta reading this chapter, and for typing it out from my crappy paper write up.

_You never find yourself until you face the truth._

_Pearl Bailey _

The silence was deafening for the few seconds it lasted. The 'rescue group' was frozen at the sight of the green haired man. Most of the group could do nothing but simply watch him in shock, but a few were looking at Wally with judging eyes. The moment of silence was shattered when sapphire rushed towards the green haired boy. "Oh Wally!" she cried out as she stumbled towards him. "We've been so worried about you."

Wally caught the sobbing girl in his arms and held her while most of the group crowded around him. He sighed before patting the crying brunet on the back. She continued to sob while Wally attempted to comfort her.

While most of the group went to greet the green haired boy, Lance and Ruby hung back.

Lance shot a startled glance at the Hoenn trainer. "Shouldn't you be over there with the rest saying hello?" He bobbed his head at the group surrounding Wally as he spoke. "Your both from Hoenn right? Isn't he your friend?"

"He's changed." Ruby said softly while his red eyes followed the tense form of his green haired friend. At Lance's confused look the scarred Pokedex holder choose to explain farther.

"He's more mature than when I last saw him. He moves with more confidence; he also tenses when ever someone hugs him. I can't help but wonder what he's seen to change him in such a way. I can't help but wonder what we'll see here."

Ruby nodded once to Lance before walking towards Wally. When Wally turned to him to look at him Ruby smiled. "It's good to see you man." He said while offering his hand.

Wally smiled as he clasped his friends offered limb. "It's good to see you Ruby," he said softly in return. "I just wish you didn't have to see Kanto like this."

Ruby went to respond when the eerie howl of a Houndoom echoed through the old house. Wally frowned before taking out a strangely shaped flute. When he blew into it a sound like a Pidgey cry came out.

Sapphire went to ask him what was going on when Wally shushed her. From the bowels of the rickety house rose a thunderous roar. It seemed to shake the very hill the house was settled on.

Lance, being the only one of the group to immediately recognize the sound, paled as the last note faded.

"What the hell was that?" Blue cried as she detangled herself from Green, who she'd latched onto when the roar had sounded.

"It's a larger Pokémon, but it kind of sounds like a Gyarados." Red glanced over at Lance as he spoke up.

Lances answering chuckle drew the rest of the groups' attention. "Nah," he said. "A Gyarados roar echoes less. Since they can't shut there jaws there roars last longer and fades off. This one echoed, but you could clearly hear when it ended, so this Pokémon can close its jaw."

Wally had been nodding along to lances explanation; proving to lance that the boy had known what Pokémon the roar had come from. _'This means that the different Pokémon calls must have different predetermined meanings.'_ Lance pondered as Sapphire turned to look at him.

"So then, what Pokémon was it?" She asked him.

The ginger champion stared at the Pokédex holder form a minute before sneering. "You should be able to figure it out for yourself child."

Sapphire looked as if she was going to try to hit him before Wally stepped in. The quiet shake of his head made her back off.

"It was a Dragonite." Lance explained. "A male one at that form the deepness of the roar. However, they got the tone slightly wrong, and it is not quite as loud as a real Dragonite."

Wally's soft laughter flittered through the air then. "It's really a horn the Queen blows." He explained cheerfully. "The vocal cord of a dead Dragonite is inside of the mouth piece." He brushed his hair out of his eyes before gesturing at the door to the house. "And the Lady demands our presence; if you will follow me I will lead you to the dining room."

"I thought the royalty of ancient Kanto used to greet their guests in throne or ball rooms?" Sapphire questioned.

Wally, Lance, and Red all went to answer only to be cut off by Green. "Audiences that arrived close to meal times where seen in formal dining rooms where the royal families and the high nobles ate."

Green then gestured for Wally to lead them inside the house. "It's not polite to keep royalty waiting, especially the ruler of all of Kanto's forests."

Wally gave Green a nod before turning to Red and Lance.

"The Lady expects your presence at the front of the group as you are the leaders."

With the said he opened the door and gestured inside. "If you will enter," Wally said. "We will head to the dining room now."


	6. Chapter 5

A/N: So this is the first chapter I left for my sister to post while I'm away. If it's not posted until I get home blame her. It's also very long… I'm giving myself carpel tunnel typing this for you. All in one day…

"_Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often."_

_~Mae West_

The house, or what the group got to see of it in their walk to the dinning room, was beautiful. It had solid wooden floors with walls painted with foliage to look like the thicker parts of the Viridian forest. The ceilings were painted like the Viridian canopy, and vases with plants native to the forest sat open wooden end tables.

"These were painted by a Smeargle." Lance pointed out as they walked through the halls.

The group stopped as blue scrutinized the walls. "How can you tell?" She asked in surprise.

Lance pointed at the bark of a large oaks trunk painted on and around a door. "The strokes are wider than a painters brush, and a little rougher." He gently ran his hand over a leaf. "The paint is also laired heavily in some places to make a texture, which is something that a human artist wouldn't have had time to do."

Lance glanced around the hall again. "It would have taken a human painter years to do just one section."

"It was done by Smeargles when the Queen was away fighting on her birthday." Wally explained quietly. "The Third Knight arranged it since the Second Knight noticed that the Lady missed living in the forest."

"She's already claimed her Triad!?" Red yelled out in shock. The entirety of Lances focus was suddenly on Wally and the rest of the group shifted about not knowing enough of the legends to know what was so alarming.

Green was racking his mind trying to remember what he'd heard of the story of Viridians Queen. As the Viridian cities gym leader he'd heard bits and pieces of the legend but never the whole thing, and what he had heard didn't stick well.

"The Queen of the Viridian forest has three knights… a triad who cares for her and protects her when she's hurt or ill, right?" He shot a questioning glance at Red.

It was Lance who chose to answer him.

"'The great forests chosen queen then walked the boundary of the forest and drew the heart of it into her self. As she used the forest to heal the scars the Great War had left on the land the last dregs of her enemies' army attacked her defenseless body. Just as one went to end her sleeping forms life three young warriors jumped to her defense. They fought off the ambush until the Lady had awoken and then took her to a safe house where she could rest. '"

His eyes were closed as he recalled the wording of the old story he had been told since he was a child.

"'But none of the group had remained unscathed and their blood mingled on the forest floor. And with that a bond was built between the three young men and the queen; one which would ensure she would never be left defenseless again.'"

"The legend go's on to say how the youngest, or third knight became her friend. Then the second knight became her general and the first her lover." Red filled in. "Congrats on having memorized the whole bloody thing thought."

"Children of the Viridian forest are expected to memorize it before we start our Pokémon journey." Lance stated off handily before looking to Wally. "We're keeping the lady waiting aren't we?"

Wally nodded before gesturing towards a large double door. It was the only part of the hall unpainted, but they were carved with trailing vines going over them.

"The Lady awaits." Wally told them. Then with a flourish he opened the double doors wide and stepped inside.

The doors had led to the formal dining room they had been told they were going to, but it looked nothing like anyone had expected. The walls and floor were cement proving that the room had once been a basement of some sorts. Cutting the rectangular room in half lengthwise was a plush red carpet. At the end of the carpet like the head of the letter 'T' was a large blue pine table.

At the very center of the table was a white wooden throne. The wood was so thin it looked like bone and metal vines curled around the seat. Made of what looked like red glass was scores of large thorns growing out of the vines, this led the throne to have a very sinister and gothic look to it while looking fragile.

Red and Lance shot each other worried looks.

"Isn't the queens' throne really a piece of Viridians heart broken off and soaked in her blood?" Red whispered to Lance as the two appraised the throne. Lance merely gave a terse nod in return.

"Then that means that it displays her deepest emotions for her court to see." Two pairs of crimson eyes gazed at the gothic throne; taking in its thin and fragile arm rests and backing with sorrow.

Lance shot a mournful glance at the chair. "She is hurting," he said in retort. "She is losing hope or dealing with some sort of psychological wound; if I have interpreted the pale wood and frailty suitably."

The champion glanced at Red before speaking again. "She's also got to be feeling either defensive or threatened for the thorns to be that large."

"Maybe both?" Red offered. "Either way she's clearly losing, or at least not winning as much as she wishes she was."

They were going to speak more when movement caught their attention. During their hushed conversation Wally had settled at the left side of the table, but now three new people where joining him.

The first was a man Lance knew was Gym Leader Morty from Johto. His messy golden hair was held out of his face by a purple headband which matched the long purple scarf wrapped around his shoulders. The red edges of the scarf looked as if it had been splattered with blood one to many times to ever fully wash it out.

Next came a slim red haired woman. She was wearing blue jean shorts and a tank top, but both had splotches of dirt and muck on them. There were also stress lines on her face, which were accented by the bob hairdo she wore.

'_Misty of Cerulean city.'_ Lances mind filled in as he heard Reds startled gasp.

For a second Red looked like he was going move towards her before twin gasps from Ruby and Sapphire distracted him.

An older man with messy silver hair had settled at the table. Most of the Kanto trainers didn't know who he was but Lance and Red recognized him from a Pokémon league champion convention a couple of years ago.

"Steven?" Ruby murmured. "What?"

The blue eyed man glanced at Ruby for a second before turning back to the table. Lance couldn't help but wonder if it had been a trick of the light because he could have sworn he'd seen a soft smile flitter across the normally cold mans face for a second.

A swift glance at Ruby told Lance that he probably shouldn't mention it to the nearly hyperventilating trainer for risk of causing the young mans first heart attack.

Blue rushed forwards, most likely to confront misty on why she was here, but a strange '**crack**' stopped her in place. Her startled look down revealed what she had stepped on. She jumped back with a shriek.

"Oh Arceus!" She cried out. "It's a rib, a fucking rib bone."

The rest of the group started to look around them to see that the ground was littered with many bones. Some where white, as if the flesh had been boiled off of them, but others were yellow with age. A few even had dirt or dried blood on them.

The Pokédex holders shifted closer together as Lance gently picked up the snapped rib. He frowned at the two pieces before starting to turn them over in his hands. Green, Red, and Ruby watched as Lance studied the bone halves while Sapphire muttered about boys playing with dead things.

"Too springy." Lance hissed as he gently bent one half of the rib. "Too large as well. Hm…"

"Put that down!" Blue screeched. "That's some buddies' firkin rib!"

A faint chuckle echoed across the room. "Why so afraid of death sister? He gets us all in the end."

The speaker stepped out of the shadows surrounding the rickety wooden staircase in the corner of the room no one had noticed before. Lance made a mental note that the spiral stair case was probably where everyone else had come from too.

"Silver!" Blues eyes lit up as she saw her little brother standing there. She moved as if to hug him when the snap of another bone made her flinch and step backwards.

Lance noticed that his cousin was amused by his 'sisters' actions. 'What games are you playing cousin, and why are you so hostile?' He thought.

It wasn't obvious to most, but Lance knew Silver almost as well as Gold did. Silver was tense, and his belt where Lance could see several shrunken Pokéballs clipped in. He didn't trust them Lance realized. His own cousin thinks he's a threat to his Queen.

Silvers head whipped towards the spiral staircase. He blinked once before nodding and turning back to the others.

"The Lady will be here in just a second." The ginger announced before walking over to the throne and settling on the right handed armrest. The metal vines shifted away from where he was sitting to avoid cutting him.

Silvers eyes shot back to the stairs so everyone else looked at them as well.

Lance was the first to notice her decent. He felt the pull from the pub start up again, and glanced up at where he could see two pairs of feet descending the twirl of the stairs. There was a pair of gold and black sneakers which Lance instantly decided were Gold's and as such disregarded. Then a second set of shoes stepped down behind Gold's.

She was reviled slowly as she glided down the wooden spiral. First her dainty white flats then the flowing white dress, which reached her ankles. Tied around her hips was a yellow sash made of some sort of silky material. It swayed as Yellow walked, and Lance saw the vague shape of Pokéballs clipped onto the two dangling ends.

The white dress was an empire waist with a halter top; the cut was very basic. Still Lance couldn't stop staring. Aside from the yellow sash she wore all white. She almost seemed to glow because of it.

"So the Pokédex holders have returned." She said softly.

Gold released her arm, which he had been holding, and settled down on the left arm of the throne. Lance noticed how the thorns on the throne had shifted away from the two young men so that they didn't get scratched. The vines left enough room for the two of them to sit on the arms safely.

Yellow walked from the foot of the stairs to the wooden table. She stopped in front of the throne where a goblet was on top of a placemat. The goblet was made of crystal and had a strange red liquid inside of it.

Blue whimpered when Yellow swirled the red liquid around the cup. All the 'Dex holders couldn't help but stare at the swishing red fluid in the goblet. Lance couldn't help but chuckle.

He stepped forward in front of the group ignoring the noise of snapping bones beneath his feet. Yellow seemed to be watching him, but her eyes gazed right past him as well. _'Is she truly blind?'_ Lance contemplated as he approached her. _'Or is her eyesight simply damaged?'_

The pull to be closer to Yellow gentled as Lance came to a halt with only a table between them. He wrapped his fingers around hers on the stem of the crystal goblet. A strange tingle ran up his skin as they touched.

'_She is definitely Viridians' Queen.'_ He thought as he raised the goblet to his lips.

The sweetness of the red liquid brought back memories of his mothers' home pressed drinks. Lance couldn't help but smile as he sipped the Viridian berry wine.

'_It's too sweet to be from before Kanto fell.' _Lance reflected as he took a second sip._ 'The wine from before Kanto fell out of contact with Johto was muskier and with all the pollution now any wine made would be very bitter.'_

He pushed the goblet against Yellows lips and watched her take a small sip before placing the cup back on the table. However, Lance did not take his hands off of Yellows. He was enjoying the strange tingles passing between the two of them as his power recognized her as The Queen.

Lance also noticed the assessing glance Silver sent his way when he ran his fingers along Yellows wrist, but he chose to ignore it for the moment.

He couldn't help but smirk at Yellow for a second before speaking. "It's not blood, or whatever else you wanted us to think. The goblets full of wine pressed from the berries that only grow in the heart of the Viridian forest, where no one but a child of the forest could safely travel." The slight up curving of her lips encouraged Lance to continue.

"I'd even go so far as to say that judging from its sweetness the berries for the wine were harvested several months after Team Rocket destroyed half the city."

Yellow laughed softly at that. "Yes it is. I suppose that means you've noticed our other little tricks then?"

"Of course." Lance shrugged before finally allowing her to pull her hands away. "The bones look human, but the rib was far to large. It also was too sharply curved and to bendy."

"It seems that we cannot trick the double region champion." She said with a soft smile in the vague direction of his shoulder.

"I think you can, Dear Lady." He tilted his head to get a better look at her eyes and noticed that they were following his body's larger movements.

An amused look settled on her face after that. "Oh really, son of the Viridian forest? When you have bested what I have already set before you?"

Lance couldn't help but enjoy the banter. "Yes really Dear Lady. For example, I cannot tell you which of the Machop evolutionary chain it comes from."

"And yet you knew it was from the Machop evolutionary chain."

"Yet I cannot tell which of the three it is from."

"Details then." She shot him a smirk before turning and moving to the throne.

Lance expected Yellow to shoo Gold and Silver off the arms of her chair before she sat down, but she didn't. Instead she settled sideways and tossed legs into Silvers lap. She rested her head in Gold's lap as her long dress draped across the throne and onto the floor.

Suddenly a young boy rushed into the room from the doors behind the Pokédex holders. He slowed to a walk as he came to the table.

"M'lady!" he said as he clumsily bowed. "Dinner is ready to be served if you would like."

Yellow seemed to ponder this for a moment before nodding. "I do believe I interrupted our guests dinner. Have the table set for our six guests and all the Lords and Ladies here tonight."

The boy nodded and started to leave when Yellow called him back.

"Please remind Ellenor that her prescience is mandatory at all meals until the Lord Healer declares her weight at a more normal level for a child her age."

Withy that said Yellow stood up from her throne and clapped her hands cheerfully. "Let's get the table ready then!"

A/N: It's pronounced El-in-nor, and you've all been introduced to her already. People who can guess it get a shout out next chapter! (I will make sure Pony25 remembers to put them in… somehow… even thought I won't be here… I'll still figure out a way!)

A/N: So I'm back, but Pony 25 clearly didn't do as asked… You lot can lynch her later if you'd like!


	7. Chapter 6

A/N: So the challenge for people guessing is still open. You'll find out next chapter, which is already done and just needs to be edited.

_Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish - too much handling will spoil it._

_Lao Tzu _

More chairs were brought out and the large table was set to sit eighteen, although it was a bit squished. Placemats were set out and silverware was placed down. After realizing that the rebellion members were simply setting the large table for dinner most of the 'Dex holders chose to pitch in.

While the Hoenn trainers were setting out cutlery and the Kanto trainers were setting out dishes Lance wandered over to where Gold and Silver were moving Yellows throne up to the table. After helping the two Johto trainers Lance noticed that the throne seemed to have changed. It looked less like an intricate throne and more like a winged back chair. It was still made of the thin white wood, and it still had the thorny vines, but it would clearly take up less room now.

"Never let it be said that the chair can't fit huh?" Gold said jokingly as he noticed Lances study of the throne. Lances startled look caused Gold to Laugh Cheerfully.

"We've all done it," he said. "Gaped over how the Viridian throne adapts to the moment."

At that point in time Silver chose to join the conversation with a smirk on his face. "Like when you got both your arms and a leg broken by a rocket admin and his Hitmonlee?"

The younger red head ran a possessive hand down gold's arm. "The bloody thing shackled you there until a healer could get to you. I don't think I've ever seen Yellow as worried, or as mad."

Gold flushed before slyly glancing at Silver. "And I've never seen you so hell bent on revenge. I would've thought that the admin was mask of Ice from the way you acted."

Silver pulled Gold flat against his chest and snarled quietly. It seemed as if he'd forgotten that Lance was even there. "You could have **died** you idiot!" His fingers clenched in Gold's sweater as he spoke. "I almost lost you!"

"But you didn't," Gold pointed out softly. His hands slid behind Silver to roam up the red heads back. "I'm fine; Yellow healed me." He let out a soft sigh as Silvers arms tightened around him.

'_Since when are Silver and Gold together?' _Lance questioned as he shifted away from his cousin, who was too caught up in Gold to remember his presence any way. _'Since when was either of them gay?'_

"They've been together for roughly two years now." Yellows voice murmured into Lance's ear. Yellow glided past him as she focused on the two boys. "After Gold almost died while fighting a Team Rocket Admiral by the name of Richard Silver seemed to come to terms with how they felt for each other."

"Didn't take Silv that long to seduce Gold after that." She quipped as they watched the two embrace each other. "Do you have a problem with it?" Her voice had hardened as she asked him.

"Not really." Lance answered with a shrug. "They're free to make their own choices."

He shot her a smirk and a wink then. "I personally prefer woman thought."

"Hmm." Her misty eyes swept over him and focused on the spot over his left shoulder. "We should go sit down now. The trainees will serve dinner soon."

She turned towards the table and started walking only to be held back when Gold and Silver each grabbed one of her arms. They held her as escorts would before leading her off towards the table.

"I'm perfectly capable of walking by my self." She told both of them crossly.

"Of course," Silver said with a nod. "The woman who is legally blind knows exactly where she is going."

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit." She told him rebelliously.

"Shall we go and eat cousin?" Silver asked Lance cheerfully. He was clearly ignoring the fuming woman on his arm. Lance couldn't help but chuckle as he followed behind. He had a feeling that dinner would be interesting.

That was an understatement.


	8. Chapter 7

A/N: Kay so here's chapter seven.

_The past speaks to us in a thousand voices, warning and comforting, animating and stirring to action._

_~Felix Adler _

The table was filled swiftly, and looking around Lance realized that he didn't know most of the people there. People in all ages and styles had settled down at the table and chatted as they ate. Lance was across from Yellow so they chatted as they ate the roast Goldeen fillet. Suddenly the large double doors opened. Elli slid through the door, blushing ferociously.

"You're late Ellenor." Elli flushed a brighter red at the stern reprimand.

"How did you even know it was me?" She pouted.

Yellow's bluntly amused smile made Elli pout more. "I couldn't hear you talking. Since you're never one to keep quiet, I simply assumed that you hadn't arrived yet." Elli shuddered. "Your distressed." Worry coated Yellow's tone as Elli whimpered softly.

Her purple eyes connected with Yellow's cloudy orbs. "Something is coming." She whispered. "It tingles across my skin like lightning in the clouds." Those who heard her shuddered for a second before returning to their meals. Elli settled beside Red with a sigh. _'Something will happen soon.' _Her thoughts rolled in a chaotic storm around her head. _'and I'm going to be at the helm of it.'_

On the end of the table Steven watched Sapphire interrogate Wally as Ruby desperately tried to change the subject. "So you just left with out asking for help?" she huffed at him.

Wally rolled his eyes. "I'm a big boy Saph, I can fight my own battles."

"What about your sickness?" She asked worriedly. Steven sat back and smiled at the familiar scene of the Hoenn Pokedex holders squabbling like the children he still thought they were at heart.

"The mistress healed him." A women sitting on Wally's other side said. She had frizzy brown hair and dark almost black eyes. "Wally got sick on an over night mission and she found out." Wally blushed and busied himself with his food. "She brought him into the forest and used the power of its heart to fix that which had made him frail. Then she smacked him for hiding his sickness and told him not to do it again."

"Hush Jamie." Steven said with amusement. "You'll turn Wally into a tomato at this rate." Suddenly a strange noise caught their attention.

Elli had paled and stiffened sitting strait up. Her purple eyes grew distant and her body stiffened as if she had rigor mortis. "Here we go again!" Gold said with a grin as everyone quieted and stared at Elli.

"Ellenor?" Yellow asked. "Can you hear me?"

The pale girl shuddered before tilting forwards slightly and opening her mouth. When she spoke it was not in her normal voice, but in that of a grown woman. The effect of hearing a small child speak in an adults voice was unsettling.

"_They will find it, the secret of the grave yard tower._

_One will betray the whole for cold revenge, then he will find the taste not to his liking."_

Her voice seemed to flood the room. Not a single person was willing to interrupt her as the words spewed forth.

"_Those hidden within are in grave peril._

_They are searching, and they shall find her._

_Child of the Viridian. Favored by the queen._

_They wish to use her as a weapon against her mistress."_

Elli seemed to draw in a shuddering breath. Her hands clenched and unclenched on the green table cloth. Lance couldn't help but shudder. 'Prophet.' A dark voice whispered in his mind. 'A being outside the natural order. They receive painful visions and speak prophecy for things that have yet to come.'

_The Dragon Tamer will be the only one who can help the phantom child,_

_But will The Queen be willing to give him up, if only for a moment?_

_All the pieces are in play._

_Now the war truly begins."_

As if she was simply a puppet who had just had its strings cut Elli slumped forward in a boneless lump. She landed face first in her soup and just lay there. Silence filled the room.

"Will someone please pull her out before she drowns in her soup?" Yellow asked. As if her speaking had broken the spell, the room filled with the noise of people discussing the prophecy. Red got up and pulled Elli out of her soup. Green, who was on her other side, got up and wiped her face clean with a napkin as Red moved her bowl away. When they were done they laid her head on the table over her folded arms and let her sleep there.

"Danna." Yellow called to a small blonde. The girl kept staring at Morty with something akin to hero worship in her eyes. Yellow sighed before turning to Silver. "Who put Danna across from Morty?" She rubbed her forehead before turning back towards Danna.

"**DANNA!**" Everyone nearby jerked as Yellow yelled at the small child.

The girl blushed and turned away from gazing at Morty to give her Queen attention. "My Lady?" From the embarrassment in her voice it was obvious that she knew she had been caught staring.

"Is there any reason we should fear that our base in Lavender was discovered?" While it was clear she was trying to hide her worry, Lance could easily see through Yellow's ruse. She wouldn't stop fingering the table cloth.

Danna looked insulted for a moment before stopping to think. "The Pokémon tower has been getting an unusual amount of attention from the Rocket Grunts in the city." She cringingly admitted. "I simply didn't think it was enough to bother you with. There are no actions on their part that could mean we've been discovered."

Yellow sighed before starting to pick at her food again. "Very well, but you _will_ fill me in if anything else happens." Danna nodded sharply before returning to her meal as well.

Not long after Yellow left the table and, as if it were some sort of unspoken cue, others finished up and began to leave as well. A delicate groan from beside him drew Red's attention to Elli. She had awakened and was glancing about groggily.

"Wha?" she mumbled as she sat up in her chair. She seemed almost dazed.

Gold and Silver walked over and started pulling her out of her chair. "Up you go honey," Silver said. "It's time to go to bed." With that said they made a follow me gesture to the rest of the Pokédex holders and started off up the wooden spiral staircase. Ellenor supported gently between them.

A couple minutes walking took them to a hall full of doors. "These are guest quarters. Four to a room." Gold pointed out as he opened a purple door with a five on it. "The ladies can stay with Misty and Jamie in here." He gestured to the four bunks in the room.

"Guys are this way." Silver said as he walked farther down the hall. Gold opened a black door with several names painted in white on the door. Elli stumbled into one of the two bunks that were in there. Silver sighed before pointing forwards. "Up here." He added.

As Silver and the boys moved on Elli pulled on Gold's sleeve to stop him from leaving. "Wait." She pleaded. "Listen."

Gold turned back to her and shot her a worried look. "Every thing okay?" He asked.

"Ruby and Lance are important." She told him. "Red and Green will make good team leaders, and blue will work well with the intelligence squads. Sapphire will find her place on her own, but it's Ruby and Lance we'll need." Gold shot her a startled look but stayed quiet.

"They'll make some of the best generals we'll ever see. Yellow will need them both in the months to come." Her purple eyes seemed almost feverish as she held him near her. "Bunk Ruby in the empty bed in Stevens room and Lance in the single person room next to Yellow. They'll be needed tonight."

With that said she dropped onto her bed and settled into an exhausted slumber. Gold stared at her for a second before blinking. With a sigh he pulled the blanket over her and left her to rest before jogging up the hall to Silver.

Silver and the males of the group had stopped in front of a dark blue door with a two painted on it. Silver was just about to open it when Gold jogged up and started hissing in his ear. Silver nodded sharply before directing the boys to a blue door with a seven on it.

"Red and Green can stay in this one." Silver said as Gold Led Ruby and Lance farther way. "It's only got room for two, so we're splitting you guys up for now." Red and Green stepped into the room with murmured thanks and started getting ready for bed, so Silver left them to it and chased after Gold.

He got there in time to see the door to the room him and Gold shared with Steven close behind Ruby. Gold made as if to lead Lance away but he folded his arms and refused to budge. "Why is splitting us up so important?" he asked coldly.

A tired sigh left Silver as he leaned back on the wall. "Well, it involves Elli, so it's complicated." He said. Lance shrugged but didn't uncross his arms. It was clear that he would not move until he got his answers.

"She feels that it is important for you to be near Yellow and for Ruby to be near Steven." Gold explained. "That it's important for the sake of the rebellion."

"Do you normally blindly follow a little girl's orders?" Lance huffed. He knew Elli was a prophet, but he also knew that prophets were fallible, and that the more one relied on a prophet the more likely they were to screw up something important.

Silvers eyes grew distant and hazy in memory. "We never used to." He admitted. The pain in his voice was tangible. "Then the great Celadon City burning happened." Lance wanted to ask, but from the shift of the two men's bodies they were clearly unwilling to keep talking.

Lance sighed before gesturing forward. "Lead on then." He said with false cheer in his voice. "To my room. I assume me being by the queen means I'm bunking alone?"


	9. Chapter 8

A/N: Does any buddy still read this thing? 'Cause I've not received a single review for three chapters and I'm starting to think my audience died while I was away at military camp. Could some one send me like a one word review proving I have living readers? 'Cause I'm really starting to doubt it.

_Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out till too late that she's been playing with two queens all along._

~Terry Pratchett

Eight eyes watched the blond queen pace back and forth over her sitting room carpet as the clock ticked near midnight. Silver and Gold had settled on a black love seat drinking cocoa as they pondered. Meanwhile Elli sat on one end of the large black couch knitting. Danna was the final person. She had settled on the other end of the couch, but was tapping her foot to keep herself occupied.

"They will find it, the secret of the grave yard tower." Yellow quoted. Her brow scrunched up in concentration as she kept pacing. "Not they are going to find the graveyard tower, but the secret of the grave yard tower." She let out an aggravated sigh.

Gold set his cocoa down on a near by end table. "The other line relates to it. 'They are searching, and they shall find her. Child of the Viridian. Favored by the queen.' That could mean Danna." He glanced over at the newest child of the Viridian forest as he spoke. She flushed and looked away.

"It takes a child of the forest to defeat a child of the forest." Silvers eyes gazed at Yellow for a moment before shifting to Danna. "And she is the youngest child of the forest. The newest generation."

"They could take her, train her." Elli added solemnly. "Children are the easiest to brainwash. They could have her believing it's her destiny to kill Yellow in three or four years of training. That's what 'Favored by the queen,' means. Yellow would never harm Danna. Their too close, she wouldn't fight back."

Agony filled Yellows misty eyes as she gazed forwards. "They wish to use her as a weapon against her mistress." She hoarsely whispered. The quote fell off her tongue like lead, and brought silence to the room for a second.

"**I HATE THIS!"** Danna suddenly screamed as she hurdled up to her feet. "I HATE HOW THEY THINK WE'RE JUST WEAPONS TO BE USED. I HATE HOW TEAM ROCKET RUINED OUR REIGON. **AND MOST OF ALL I HATE THIS STUPID WAR!**" She stood panting after that, a wild look in her eyes. Silence fell around them in that sitting room as one of their own fell to pieces in front of them.

Lance had been trying to sleep all night. Really he had, but it just wasn't happening. At first he was to awake and couldn't stop thinking, then later he'd heard several people entering the room beside his. Now it was curiosity that kept him awake. Or at least that's what he told himself.

Suddenly a young female voice carried through the walls. **"I HATE THIS!"** She yelled angrily.

Lance got out of the chair he'd been sitting in. His room was smaller than the others but only held one bed rather than four, and had a desk. It even had a small table with three chairs by it in one corner. It wasn't nearly as extravagant as his quarters in the Indigo Plateau, but it reminded him of his room from when he had grown up in Blackthorn. It was homey in a way.

Then the voice interrupted his thoughts, and gave him an idea. "I HATE HOW THEY THINK WE'RE JUST WEAPONS TO BE USED. I HATE HOW TEAM ROCKET RUINED OUR REIGON. **AND MOST OF ALL I HATE THIS STUPID WAR!**" the girl screamed as Lance slid out of his room._ 'I'll just go in and ask what's wrong.'_ He decided. _'Besides, this is an excellent way to sooth my curiosity.'_

He opened the door to Yellows room and leaned on the door frame. The sight that awaited him was surprising. Yellow, Silver and Gold were all there as well as the prophet Ellenor and the girl who'd been obsessed with Morty at dinner. He thought her name was Danna, but he couldn't be sure.

The little blond was weeping on the floor at Yellows feet while Gold and Silver quietly watched. Both were clearly uncomfortable with weeping females from the way they avoided her eyes. Elli was knitting _something_. That was all Lance could call it since the warped shape didn't remind him of anything he'd ever seen knitted before. He decided not to ask.

"What are the next two lines again?" Elli asked out of the blue as she started knitting a large hole into her project.

It was Silver who answered. He seemed almost relieved to have something other than a crying girl going on in the room. "The Dragon Tamer will be the only one who can help the phantom child, but will The Queen be willing to give him up, if only for a moment?" The way he was glancing at the table near him told Lance that there was a written copy of the prophecy there.

"But who _is_ the Dragon Tamer?" Yellow queried.

"I am." Lance said as he waltzed into the room. Almost everyone startled at his sudden appearance. Silver, and surprisingly Elli seemed to be the only ones not startled at his entrance. "I was having trouble sleeping and came to check what all the yelling was about."

"Trouble sleeping Lance?" Yellow asked. "One would think you'd be exhausted after all you saw today."

"I suppose I should be." He responded. "I just can't help but feel pulled somewhere."

Yellow flushed guiltily as he said that. "I sorry. I'm so sorry." She told him. "The pull between me and the other children of the Viridian forest increases when I'm feeling negative emotions. I forgot that you were close enough to feel it, or I would have blocked it."

Lance shrugged as he settled on an old Victorian styled loveseat. "Not your job to look after me. It's my job to look after you."

"Still. I'm sorry. I won't happen again." She told him softly.

_**(Does anyone know how to do a page break. If so can you tell me? It keeps deleting mine.)**_

In Steven's room he and Ruby had been chatting. Well, it was more like Ruby being mad at Steven and Steven trying to fix things.

"Why couldn't you just ask for help?" Ruby snapped as he paced past the silver haired man. "We would have gladly helped fight. Hell, we would have jumped right in to the fray!"

Grey eyes narrowed at that. "And you would have died," Steven said. "Your life wasn't mine, isn't mine, to put at risk Ruby. You're still a child, and this war is serious." A tense silence fell between them. Then the ticking of the clock on the wall drew Steven's attention and he swore. It was well after midnight.

Ruby shot the older man a look as he jumped up. "I'm late." Was the hurried explanation he gave as he headed for the door. "Most of the Lords and ladies are meeting in Yellow's room." A swift glance at his companion told Steven that Ruby was not going to sit quietly while he was away. A snap second decision had Steven pulling the young man behind him to the meeting.

'_What the hell,'_ Steven thought. _'It's not like its forbidden or anything!'_

Steven entered in time to catch Danna and Elli going head to head on whether the ghost user should return to Lavender Town or not. Not that seeing Ellenor fighting with one of the younger members was that rare, Elli did not get along with _any_ of them, but her and Danna usually avoided arguing in front of the older members.

"You know nothing of my city soothsayer!" The blond yelled as she fingered one of her Pokéballs. Ellenor should have been scared, yet the ginger just looked board.

She shot her opponent a cruel smile before nodding at Steven and Ruby. "Good to see you showed up Steven, and nice to formally meet you Ruby." Elli said as she ignored her fuming rival.

"**Don't you ignore me.**" Danna screeched before leaping up from her seat and lunging at the red head. Her attack missed as Elli dodged her and knocked the poor girl dead to the world with a well aimed blow to the back of the head. The knocked out blond landed in a heap at Ruby's feet.

"This," Steven said with annoyance, "is why we never get anything done around here."

Elli shot him a cheerful smile as she returned to her knitting. "At least we keep the healers well worked!" Ruby decided it really wasn't worth it to ask.

The meeting had gone along nicely. Ruby had been accepted with only a raised eyebrow or two. He was now quietly dozing on Stevens should as the group sat in quiet contemplation. A delicate yawn from Ellenor tipped Yellow off that it was time to end the meeting. The clock was reading three in the morning and most of the people in attendance had training in the morning.

"You should all go to sleep." She told them. "I'll call another meeting if anymore information pops up. For now, rest. You've all earned it twice over." Those awake shuffled out carrying the sleeping members with them until all that was left was Yellow, Lance, and the sound of the closing door in the silence.

Viridian's Queen settled into her wing backed chair and stared at the champion before her. "Why are you still here? You should be resting; you've had a long day and no sleep."

Lance's red eyes seemed to seer through her soul in that second. "I want to join the rebellion." He told her calmly. "I want to help."

"It is not your job." The desperation in her voice struck him. "Not your field to die on!"

"Nor is it yours!" He snapped in response. Yellow jerked back at the ferocity in his voice as he stalked towards her like a Charizard stalking its prey. "I am Kanto's champion. It's my responsibility!" Lance was quick to remind her.

He knelt at her feet like one of the knights of old to their ruler. The look on his face reminded her more of a man preying to his deity then a knight, but she quashed that thought before it was fully formed.

"I, Lance the Dragon Tamer, swear my loyalty to Viridian's Queen. My Pokémon and my self to her disposal, and my life for her cause." Lance spoke the old words with a surety that few who had ever taken the oath had ever had. Yellow knew that he understood what it meant, and that he meant it even more because.

Catching her fingers in his hair she pulled his head into her lap and gazed on him. "The lady of the forest hears and accepts your loyalty, dear knight." She said softly; the words falling like cleaning rain from her mouth.

They stayed that way as the sun rose through the lone window in the room. Yellow running her hands through Lance's hair as he rested his head on her lap. She couldn't help but feel that something had changed that night. Something she had never considered possible. And as the sun rose in the window, she glanced at it, almost expecting to see a phoenix of myth rising from its fiery depths.


	10. Chapter 9

A/N: Ah, that time already. Act 1 of the fic (where the 'rescue team' joins the rebellion) is finished. Act 2 will begin in the next chapter. This chapter will be a connecting bridge between the two Acts (also called a filler chapter for those who wondered). Also thank you to my two wonderful reviewers who proved people still like this! I'm typing for you now! And thanks for all the other people who reviewed the next day and on so! An explanation for why I asked the question will be at the end of the chapter for those who want an answer, but you don't have to read it.

A/N 2: An explanation (me begging for forgiveness) for why I've been gone from here for so long will be at the bottom as well.

"_A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men."_

_ ~ Rould Dahl_

Elli smiled at Green, some how this only made it worse. Since the rebellion was on the down low the Pokédex holders spent the day training with the trainees. Yellow thought it wise to split them up so they could learn different things, so they had scattered into different training groups that morning.

Somehow Green had ended up being stuck babysitting Ellenor, thought no one quite knew how.

"_Darkness is coming."_ Elli said in an eerie voice from where she was knitting in a tree. The strangely shaped object was black and gray with many holes. Green couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was going to be, or what she'd meant about the darkness for that matter.

"What?" he asked as she returned her attention to her knitting. "Are you foretelling something again?"

Glowing purple eyes met his emerald for a second before she glanced at the sun above them. _"The night of Darkness is coming. The sun shall devour the moon."_ She shuddered once before standing up and walking off of the branch she was on. Green nearly had a heart attack when she started to fall.

A crackling noise filled the air as Ellenor grabbed a branch and hung suspended from it for a second. Then she let go and dropped neatly onto the ground. Green couldn't help but stare as the red headed child waltzed past.

She shot him a quick glance over her shoulder and smirked. "I should go tell Morty and Danna that a Lunar Eclipse is coming; the ghost and dark Pokémon will gain from it."

Confusion flickered across Greens face. "What?"

Elli laughed as she kept walking. 'Viridian gym leader he may have been,' she thought coyly, 'but he never took the time to study the old texts.' Her smirk shifted into a little girl's smile as she giggled softly. "I sometimes do the weather!" she called before racing off, leaving a confounded former gym leader to chase after her.

For Ellenor life was good.

Life was not so good for Sapphire. She'd joined 'Serra Company,' the group that did survival training. Sapphire had been sure she'd pass the class with flying colors. She'd been wrong; very very wrong.

"You did really well for a beginner!" the instructor told her cheerfully. "I'm sure you get the hang of it in a couple of weeks."

Sapphire ground her teeth as she walked away. All the knowledge she'd picked up over the years in Hoenn seemed to mean nothing here. Berries she knew should grow in forests had never been introduced to this place, and the Pokémon were so different she couldn't tell which were edible. It was like being seven again, on her first field exercise with her father. She'd known nothing then.

Soft arms pulled the fuming girl into a corner. She moved as if to hurt her capture only to freeze when she saw Wally standing there. "Would you like some help?" he asked in a soft voice. His green eyes met her blue solidly even as he passed her a book on wilderness knowledge.

"It's just so different here," She told him. "I keep expecting there to be wild tropius or Razz berries growing near trees."

"It gets better," he promised. A quick gesture brought her attention back to the book he'd given her. It was very old with a brown leather cover and peeling gold leaf spelling out the title. _**Olde knowledge of the nature arts**_ it read across the front, and the faint smell of dried leaves and paper seemed to rise from it. Wally fingered the corner of the book before speaking again. "It was passed on to Yellow from her great grandmother so be gentle, but it will teach you most of what you need to know."

He shot her a sweet smile. "Come find me when your done it and I'll test you on what you've learned." With that said he turned and melted into the crowd of people going into the hall way. The room they were in was for survival lessons only, and those who passed could join other company's lessons instead.

Sapphire stared at the book for a minute before heading off to a near by bench. Maybe book learning wasn't as good as hands on, but she'd take the extra help anyway.

Red shot Blue an infectious grin as they followed the instructor's signals. Hotel Company was hand signals, and the two Kanto trainers were having quite a bit of fun learning them. So far they'd learned that the hand signals were used in situations when speech may compromise you. They could also be taught to Pokémon so that you didn't give your attacks away.

At the moment they were in a large underground cavern that had been dug out under the house. It was filled with cave flora and lots of secret passages ways to hide in. It made the perfect training ground for field work. The class was split into four man cells and told to capture each others cells. It would be a good lesson in stealth as well.

With a quick grin to Red Blue ran off with five cell. Red had been assigned two cell, so he followed after the person who had taken charge.

After a while the cell stopped to spy on another cell. The four in the cell all looked very young and were arguing very loudly at each other. The boy who was leading two cell watched with a smirk. Red decided to call him the green shirt guy since he was wearing a long sleeved green sweater. Green shirt pushed his hands down in the symbol for stay down before gesturing for the smallest of their members to climb a tree.

She nodded her assent before swiftly scrambling up the tree. Seconds later she had disappeared into the leaves as well as any bug Pokémon could have. Only the slight sway of the branch she walked across allowed Red to track her. Green shirt gestured for all of them to ambush the other cell, but Red held up his hand.

Twisting his hand in the sign for different road and pointing at the cliff above the arguing cell he waited for the leader to get the message. Green shirt scrutinized the cliff for a second before smirking. With a nod in return Red raced up the incline behind him and army crawled along the top of the short cliff. The other cell was still arguing.

"We should hide and wait for a stupid team of newbie's to walk past." One girl from the opposing cell argued. She held a haughty look on her face as if she thought she knew all. Red thought it was funny to see her making newbie mistakes while trying to act superior.

A wide boy with brown hair glared at the girl. "Sit around and wait like cowards? Never!" he looked as if the very thought was a deadly offence to him. _'A fighter,'_ Red thought, _'who likes to face his enemy head on.'_

The two looked as if they were about to begin screaming at each other when the small girl from red's own cell jumped from a tree and knocked the haughty female over. The girls startled shouts were drowned out by the wider boys roar of fury when Red catapulted himself off the cliff onto his back.

When green shirt and the other boy, a blond, joined the fray it ended swiftly. The other team was taken down and tied up. After stealing the small piece of cloth they had, Red's team left to find other groups. Red couldn't help but smile. Who would have thought training could be this fun?

'_Damn it I'm late!' _Yellow thought as she raced down a hallway. She was meant to be debriefing a team that had just returned, but she had gotten sidetracked with some paper work about the team that had lost a member last week. If she was late it would look like she did not think that their mission was worth her looking into. That would be an insult to such an experienced team as them.

She turned the corner at a fast run with really looking, and slammed into something hard for her trouble. She heard a masculine oomph before the two of them crashed to the ground in a pile of limbs. Yellow got a glance of tell tale spiky red hair before she noticed the hard chest she was pressed against.

In an instant she was on her feet and babbling apologies as Lance blinked stupidly. She was so embarrassed she'd fallen on him like that. "Don't worry." Lance told her. "I'm tougher than your floor anyways."

She gave him a soft smile, but that quickly faded when she saw a clock. An apologetic glance was all the goodbye Lance would get as Yellow raced off down the hallway. He laughed anyway. _'She's probably late for something,'_ he decided as he continued down the hallway. _'She really needs an assistant, or another knight.'_

With a sudden 'thunk' Ruby's ass end hit the ground. The wooden practice sword he'd been using arced through the air before meeting the ground with a resounding crash. The next thing Ruby knew there was a pale hand in front of him and laughter ringing in his ears.

"You did really well for a beginner." Steven assured the blushing boy as he pulled Ruby to his feet. Behind them Silver and Gold were chuckling from where they had been leaning on a wall. They had turned up in time to see Steven test Ruby's physical fighting abilities. Steven had chosen to do this in the form of a practice sword fight. Ruby had never fought with a sword before in his life.

It showed… a lot.

"How about I start with showing you how to hold a sword properly first?" Steven grinned as he handed the practice sword back to Ruby. The Pokédex holder glanced at the sword with some trepidation before shrugging and taking it from the grey haired man.

'_After all,'_ he thought. _'How bad can I be?'_

Sapphire sighed as she put the book down. The leather crackled softly as it settled against the wood of the bench on the outskirts of the Viridian forest. A nice trainee had shown her the tunnel to the forest that was for gathering groups. The groups would gather berries from the forest and bring them back to the HQ.

A creak from the door caught Sapphire's attention. The green hair now visible as someone climbed out of the hollow oak tree gave the boy away.

'_I wonder if his hair helps him blend in or gives him away on field missions.'_ Sapphire almost missed Wally speaking to her as she mused.

"How are you?" he settled down on the bench after asking. His bright green eyes froze her for a second before she found it in herself to respond.

'_Stupid! You have a boyfriend.' _She reminded herself as she smiled at him. "I'm good. This book explained so much about the things I didn't understand of this region. It's a real life saver!" She looked down at the book as she spoke. Internally she winced. _'Way to go moron. Now he probably thinks I'm obsessed with survival shit.'_

Wally softly smiled at her, but his war hardened eyes picked up on her uncertainty. He brushed it off a moment later as worry over failure and grinned at her. "Don't worry Saph! I'm sure you'll do fantastic!" he told her as he reached into the backpack he'd brought with him. A moment later he pulled out a box full of Kanto berries. "And to prove it I'll test you!"

Without even realizing it she relaxed. This was the kind of test she would have put her self through, so it wasn't that hard to adjust her mindset to working with two people. After that it was a breeze.

Ellenor smirked as she wove through the cautious crowd of trainees. When she'd first arrived here a year ago she'd wanted their acceptance. Now she knew she'd have to settle for their wary respect, and occasionally even fear.

The brunet behind her was far less thrilled by the hustle of the break room then Elli was. Green watched warily as the older trainees scattered to the corner of the room she was farthest way from at the time and the younger trainees tripped over each other in their mad scramble to escape.

He stepped back for a moment to observe the girl he'd been assigned to baby sit. She moved as if she was the only person in the room, and the people in it moved so that none of them got in her way. While she acted as if all she had to do was walk and the others would move, and they did, she also had a kind of grace about her that Green had to ponder over for a moment. It reminded him of the way dancers moved, he realized. Dancing or gymnastics, and remembering her stunt with the tree he chose to bet on gymnastics.

'_She has the figure for them.'_ He decided as he watched her settle on the most ornamental couch in the room. _'Even if she looks to thin to stand up to a gust attack.'_

While Green was sizing up Ellenor, his charge was studying him too. He held some kind of aura of power around him, she thought. He was used to being in charge and giving orders._ 'While he's not imaginative enough to help lead a guerrilla army…' _she looked Green up and down. _'He'll make a good section commander or team leader, and a good gym leader after we win this war.' _She watched the trainees move aside for him not out of fear like they did with her, but out of respect. They could sense a kindred spirit in him, and power.

She was envious.

None had seen his Pokémon battle, none of them had seen him fight, and none of them even knew he was the Viridian gym leader. They just felt that he was one of them and didn't expect him to prove himself. Elli shot an angry glance at one group of trainees in a corner. _'They never even let me try to prove myself!' _Rage curled bitterly across her tongue.

Most people in the room completely missed the girls growing rage. All except for a silver eyed man who'd been standing unnoticed behind the couch in some shadows.

"Ellenor!" a low male voice caught the girl's attention. She glanced back to see narrowed silver eyes and red hair held up in a ponytail. When he knew he had her attention his hands began a graceful dance through the air in front of him. After a minute of that he turned and disappeared into a well hidden doorway behind a wall hanging. Elli turned to check on Green in time to see him tear his eyes away from where Silver had disappeared through.

"He said to report to Yellow later this evening." She told Green while arranging her knitting needles. They clinked together in her hands in a soothing rhythm. "He was using sign langue to tell me stuff without being over heard."

Green nodded as he watched her unroll part of her ball of yarn with a simple flick of her wrist. She was just reattaching the end of a button hole large enough to fit a limb through when she noticed his interest. "Would you like to learn to finger knit?" she asked. "We could do garlands for the Christmas trees that will be set up in a month or so."

"I'm up for it if you are." He responded warily.

Ellenor's grin would have made a shark proud.

"It's really easy." The blond nurse walking in front of Lance commented. She was a slightly plump woman with dirty blond hair and a mothering smile. Sunlight glinted off of her rectangular glasses as she led the way down a nearly perfectly hidden path.

A lazy flick of her fingers had the latch of the hidden barn's door opened. A quick gesture later and lance was being shown inside a compact room with lots of baby Eevees inside of it. Lots of _tiny_ baby Eevees.

"They just need to eat half a bottle each right now, but give them more if they want it after. The instructions are taped on that wall." The woman pointed to a chart on the opposite wall before leaving her latest helper alone with his charges. The woman, whose name was Melissa, had seen him wandering about with nothing to do and commandeered his time to help her with the newest batch of Eevee pups. She had to stay with a Rabadash who was having twins, so she couldn't feed them herself.

Lance had been more than willing to help the slightly frazzled looking woman, but as he mixed the formula he pondered whether or not he could feed the seventeen Eevees by himself. The formula, Kangascan milk with Vilplume nectar and Miltank cream, sloshed heavily in the bottles as he prepared them. Carefully Lance picked up the first pup and started feeding.

He was about halfway through when the slim creamy hands picked up the pup nearest him and inserted a bottle into its mewling mouth. Pushing her long blond hair out of her way Yellow settled beside him and pitched in. The two of them shared a soft glance before Yellow blushed and looked away.

Lance had a satisfied smile the rest of the day.

The word pass had never sounded sweeter in Sapphire's ears. She stared at the instructor of Serra Company for a moment as the word sunk in. Suddenly she spun around with a quick whoop. _'I did it!'_ she thought as she bounced up and down.

Blue and green eyes collided as Saph launched herself into Wally's arms without a thought. Wally, having put on some muscle in the last couple of weeks, swung her around for a minute before lowering her back onto the floor. He ignored the warning twinges in his back, to happy to let pain and a half healed wound interfere.

"You did it!" with a breathless smile he pulled the brunette closer to him. Their joy was almost infectious as he pulled her almost flush with his body. Their arms slid from shoulders to each others waists and Sapphires eyes fell to half mast as their faces drew closer together. Suddenly an amused voice interrupted them.

"Next." The instructor called as she watched the two leaped away from each other as if they'd been burned. They flushed brilliantly in front of her, giving the woman something funny to tell at supper tonight. Any gossip on the lords and ladies was welcome at dinner so long as it wasn't hurtful or top secret.

As they walked out Wally hid a wince. The throbbing in his back told him he'd torn the reason for him being stuck in HQ back open again. A faint warm trickle told him he needed to get the wound bandaged again before someone noticed he was bleeding and had a panic attack. With an unpleasant grimace he realized that he was going to be scolded by Yellow again.

"And then over and under and over and under and over and under again!" Ellenor told Green as he worked on his first finger knitted chain. Elli's chain was almost two meters long, but Green had barely reached half a meter with his.

Glancing over at the humming redhead left Green pondering how twisting yarn around your fingers and pulling loops over each other made a chain. Looking at the delicate interwoven shape of his chain he decided to leave stuff like that to scientists. _'At least it's simpler than what she was doing on the needles.'_ He decided.

Unaware to the slightly off topic Green, although Elli had noticed them before they had even sat down, the other two Kanto 'Dex holders were sitting on a nearby couch watching their normally cold friend do a child's handcraft.

"It's kind of cute." Blue announced while practically cooing over the picture of Green surrounded by multicolored yarn. "He's like a little house wife!"

Ignoring the amused smile she flashed him, Red studied the other male. There was a pleased smile on him face as he glanced at his growing chain.

"Should we go interrupt them?" Blue asked jokingly as Green and Elli started chatting over their projects.

Red shook his head while continuing to watch the two before them chat. They seemed quiet happy, which brought a faint smile to the red eyed boys face. "Let him have some good memories of this place." Red whispered. "They'll be swept away soon enough."

Blue glanced over at the two on the couch before pouting at Red. "What _does_ that mean?"

"It's called a rebellion rather than a revolution for a reason Blue." He reminded her. "We entered the fight at a rare lull in the war, but this a war. The two sides are going to fight and people are going to die."

His gaze was drawn to a table with shrines to all the different legendary Pokémon on it. There were offerings normally only left at graveyard shrines littered with the offerings for good luck and better dreams. The rebellion couldn't have an outright area for all of their members to leave offerings for the dead at, so the household shrines were now multipurpose.

An almost freezing anger seemed to coil behind his crimson eyes for an instant. "When the fighting restarts we are going to have to choose to stay here as noncombatants like Elli or fight in the midst of the battle fields. Chances are we'll see things that haunt our dreams for the rest of our lives while fighting. Are you ready for that?"

Blue's nail file slid listlessly from her fingers and landed without a noise on the floor. "The freedom of Kanto from Team Rockets cruel grasp is worth any price." She told him. Her voice was full of her steel and her eyes cold. Red was suddenly hit with the realization that he wasn't the only one to have matured when witnessing the destruction of Kanto on the way to Viridian.

A delicate young girl of roughly sixteen glided up behind them. She had frizzy brown hair and dull chocolate eyes which stared grotesquely out of her emaciated face. Dark multicolored bruises littered her visible flesh with two almost black imprints of fingers on ether side of her neck.

The girl could have been the poster child for severe abuse victims.

"_Even your __**life**__, is it worth __**that**_?" she asked in a dry whisper.

Red and Blue whirled around when the broken voice invaded their eardrums. They couldn't believe what they were seeing. The girl should have been in the medical ward! She was that thin.

"_We __**all**__ make sacrifices in war."_ The girl told them scornfully when she noticed their horrified appraisal of her body. _"Mine are simply more physical than others."_

Before they could say anything in response, or demand the frail girl seek medical attention, Ellenor was at her side speaking rapidly. "What did he do to you this time?" The redhead cried as she helped the starved girl sit down on a section of the couch.

"_What he normally does."_ The girl replied softly. _"Tell Yellow her faithful spy has more news, would you."_

"Is it really worth it?" Elli murmured as she ran her fingers over the bruises on the brunette's throat. "Is what information you bring worth the price you pay?"

A mocking tone played around the words the girl spat out next. _"Does it __**really **__matter?"_ a world weary looked filled the girls face as she spoke. _"Is my life worth the freedom of our nation? Yes, yes it is. My pain means nothing in the end if my sacrifice means we win this. Every insult and bruise and humiliation will be worth it." _A strange hunger filled her eyes. _"__**Your **__victory will be __**my **__**revenge.**__"_

A second later the door to the break room flew open and Yellow raced inside. She was closely tailed by Gold and Lance. "Danna said you'd been sighted near here." The blond puffed out as she kneeled next to the couch. Her amber eyes swept angrily over the girls body. "I don't see why you keep doing this. We could rescue you anytime now."

"And what would I do?" The brunette snapped. "My body is to damaged for me to ever do combat, I can't heal others, and my parents raised me for the position I hold in Team Rocket. I have no skills worth a damn in this world anymore."

She shook her head morosely before focusing back on Yellow. "They're going to mobilize a surprise attack soon, but the date hasn't been decided yet. Sometime next week is most likely."

"I'll get the rebellion battle ready for two days time." Gold told Yellow before striding out of the room. Yellow helped the brunette stand up and the two walked side by side out of the room talking about member stats and average fighting power of Team Rocket combat squads.

"Who was she?" Lance asked when the door closed behind the two women.

Elli tore her eyes away from the door to look at Lance with an unreadable look on her face. "That was the rebellion's best spy, who just so happens to be in the highest ranking Team Rocket position that we can worm a spy into."

"Is she an admin member?" Red asked quietly.

"No." Elli responded. "She's Giovanni's lover."

The shocked looks on all the Pokédex holders faces was almost made admitting her bestfriend was sleeping with the man she hated the most out loud worth it to the young redhead as she walked back to her knitting. Almost.

She would still help her kill him thought.

A/N: Okay, so first off why I asked if anyone still read my story. Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 all received no reviews. I think we can all agree that if no chapters get reviews for four chapters there is something wrong there. Maybe I need to start review whoring after every chapter? Would that help?

People, I need reviews to tell me how you want this story written. The chapters only get planned out a day or two in advance to me starting to type them, so reviewer requests are taken into consideration. If you want to see something, or have an Idea or complaint just tell me. You can even PM me if you don't want others to read it. I even allow anonymous reviews (oddly no one has taken advantage and flamed me yet…) if you don't want to log in cause you're lazy or having problems or forgot your password.

Also, SOMEONE NITPICK ME! I don't really have a beta. My big sister just skims them quickly before I post the chapters, but nether of us is very good at grammar, so stuff tends to slip through.

As for why I've been silent for so long (SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY!); I've been really sick. Not the kind of 'stay home from school' or 'in the hospital' sick, but the kind of 'do what I need to pass school then go home and sleep like a log while hacking up flem with a stuffed nose, headaches, muscle cramps, and random dizzy flashes' sick.

It sucked.

I'm still sick, but since it's now my winter break I should have more energy to write because it's not wasted rushing up all the freaking stairs at my school. Hopefully updates will resume their once or twice a month postings.

Interesting little reward for those who read that entire rant; I'm posting this on December 24th as a birthday present for all of you. That's because the 24th is my B day, and I'm turning 17! Happy 17th to me! Since its 12:32 AM on the 24th, I'll tell you all what I got for presents in the next chapter!

Proud to be Pagan,

~ Misstresssasori!


	11. Chapter 10

A/N:

_Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime._

_~Ernest Hemingway_

**xXxXxXxXx**

Things were peaceful for the rebellion when the Pokédex holders arrived, but this is war. In war, things are never peaceful long. It started off with a couple of reports of increased Team Rocket activity along Cinnabar Island. It didn't stay that way.

This is war, and things escalate quickly.

**xXxXxXxXx**

"Why are there people called ruling lords and ladies?" Blue asked Wally one day. All of the 'dex holders were sitting together in Yellow's living room chatting when Blue decided to quench her curiosity. They had been started to find that the rebellion had a no training rule on Fridays, but were taking advantage of it anyways.

It was Silver who answered her. "There is a ruling Lord or Lady for each city or place on the map." He explained as he settled farther onto the couch. Blue nodded slowly.

"Think of it like this," Silver tried again. "There are different sectors of the rebellion in different places. Each sector is ruled by a Lord or Lady who reports to one of the Knights, who will then report the important things to Yellow."

"So then it's like a hierarchy?" Blue pondered.

Gold shot her two thumbs up. "Yeah," he smiled, "just like that!"

Lance glanced at Yellow, whom he was meaning to ask a question himself, only to see a younger boy passing her off a report. Seconds into reading it her face grew worried. He moved to her couch and settled beside her.

"Are you okay?" he whispered softly in her ear. Yellow jerked where she was sitting and squeaked. Lance felt her shock pulse through the bonds Viridian's Queen had with each of her knights and all of the children of the forest. Both Silver and Gold turned to look at them before nodding and returning to their chat with Blue.

Lance had found himself settling into a strange kind of friendship with Silver and Gold once they had found out that that Yellow had taken to calling him dear knight. He wasn't sure if it was because they thought she would pick him to be the third knight, or because they thought the bond between her and the children of the forest would stop him from being a threat. Either way both of the boys seemed to trust him to protect her when they weren't there.

Lance would have admitted to being honored had anyone asked.

"I'm fine," Yellow uselessly tried to reassure him. She froze at the no nonsense look he shot her. "It's Team Rocket again." She murmured to him. "They're trying to steal the firestones from inside the Cinnabar Volcano. If they get them they can evolve some of their Pokémon that they couldn't before."

Lance understood where her fear was coming from. Evolved Pokémon are far more powerful than those not evolved, and every advantage Team Rocket got just pushed the tide farther in their favor.

Lance ran his finger over the report on the mining Team Rocket had already done. "You could steal the first shipment before it went out." He pointed out as he read. "You could also blow up the mining rig, or break it somehow. Then they couldn't mine anymore."

"That would mean sending a team there to do it." Yellow frowned softly as she tried to work the mission out in her head.

Lance frowned back at her. "Do you not have a sector in Cinnabar Island? Who did the spying in the report then?"

"No, no," she quickened to reassure him. "We do have a sector in Cinnabar, but they're really small and not combat based. The island sees next to no fighting since it is so small. We do most of our breeding there, since the sands are so warm."

Lance nodded along with her. "It would help the eggs hatch. You breed the ice and water types elsewhere?"

Silver settled down on Yellows other side (effectively sandwiching her between him and Lance), and snitched the report from Lance's open palms. "We breed the ice and water types in a special breeding center up by Mt. Silver. Dragon types are the only ones we don't breed in mass, since so few are willing to train them." He ran his fingers over the brail bumps as he spoke. "And since when do you know brail?"

Lance shrugged. "Up until eight or so years ago Unova had a blind champion. At league meetings her reports were all in brail writing. Now Alder is the Unova Champion, but the skill stuck with me. You learned after Yellow went blind?"

Both men ignored Yellow's hissed out 'not blind, visually impaired!' as a glance passed between them. Lance wanted to know more about the so called 'accident' and Silver would tell him.

"Yeah, I learned after all that." Silver said as he passed the report back to Yellow. "Gold and Irene did too."

Deciding that they had ignored her enough, and that a change of topic was in need, Yellow spoke up. "What combat team are we going to send to Cinnabar? I need to send them to Lord Cinnabar before they can start their mission."

Silver hummed lowly as he thought that over. His eyes flickered randomly across the room without seeing what was there. "A group of four," he said finally. "They can go in partners."

"One set of two can get the shipment while the other deals with the mining machine?" Lance asked. Silver nodded in response.

"Send the married pair." Silver told Yellow. "The fire type trainer and his wife who is a scientist. They can deal with the machine."

Yellow blinked slowly for a second before smiling. "Dan and Maya? I do believe they're free of missions this week. Now who should the combat team be? We don't have any to spare at the moment, and I don't want to over work anyone."

Silver and Yellow pondered over who else they could send, but it was Lance who solved their problem in the end. "You could send some of those who came to rescue you guys." He pointed to the people across the room. "Give a small taste of what they're getting into."

"Sapphire and Ruby." A voice said from beside them. Gold settled on the arm of the couch beside Silver and smirked at the looks the people on the couch sent him. "They have the least amount of experience with this, since they're the youngest. We might as well shatter their rose tinted glasses at the early stage of the war."

"I'm not sure…" Yellow started, but lance shushed her with a gentle pat on the arm.

"You prefer they go through this with naïve views on war until they see something so horrid they can't lie to themselves anymore?" Lance asked her heatedly. "Or would you rather they learn how this is going to go down in a small skirmish."

"Push them into a pool or toss them off a cliff into an ocean?" She said softly. "They can go if you're sure they can handle it."

Yellow glanced over to the Hoenn Pokédex holders with a worried aura. "Gods, I hope they are ready." The others on the couch nodded along with her. Hopefully they weren't sending the 18 year olds into a battle they couldn't win.

"But," Yellow whispered forlornly, "this is _war_."


	12. Chapter 11

A\N: Hello everyone! Chapter 11 just for all of you! Don't pay much attention to the quote. I threw it in there for the heck of it (It's my favorite team work quote), and it doesn't forewarn of foreshadow anything this chapter.

_Teamwork: because bullets can only go through so many bodies._

_ ~Unknown_

**xXxXxXxXx**

Since they had been told Friday was a free day, Sapphire and Ruby were confused when they were summoned to Yellow's office.

"It is nothing bad." Yellow told them with a reassuring smile. "I just need your help a bit." She gestured to the chairs in front of her desk and invited them to sit down.

Ruby, feeling the slight tension in the room, chose to simply sit quietly and wait. Sapphire glanced around the office instead. The room housed a file cabinet, Yellow's desk, and a bookshelf full of many books. Most of them appeared to be old and handmade, while one shelf near the middle held a collection of maps and several books on Kanto cities and land.

There were very few personal touches, and Sapphire decided that this was an office well worked in.

"We have a situation that the rebellion needs to take care of swiftly." Yellow stated. There was a hint of exhaustion hiding in her voice, but her face displayed none of it. "Gold suggested that you two would make a good partnership for this mission."

Sapphire nodded happily. She was eager to help free Kanto, but Ruby was more hesitant. "Will we be going alone, just the two of us?" he queried.

Yellow was quick to reassure him. "Good heavens, no!" she spluttered out. "You'll be two of a group of four. I would be sending two very experienced members with you. You are there for back up, and may not fight at all."

Ruby and Sapphire shared a searching glance. A moment later they nodded. "We'll do it!" Sapphire cheered with a bright smile on her face. "What do you need?"

**xXxXxXxXx**

Apparently the first thing Yellow needed was for them to take a letter to a lady named Anna. Anna turned out to be an elderly lady with an entire room full of clothing and gear. She was slightly chubby with white hair curled up in a bun and sharp green eyes.

"So, the Lady needs you kitted out for a mission, yeah?" She asked after reading the letter. The Hoenn trainers simply stared at her. They had no clue what she was talking about. A simple glance at their blank faces clued Anna in on that.

She huffed before turning back to face them. "I'm Anna, the Lady of the House for Viridian. That means I deal with household things like making sure we have enough food or cloths that fit." She pointed at a rack of camouflage jackets behind her. "You need something, or going on a mission, and you came to me."

Anna measured the Hoenn trainers with very little fuss. She was quick, precise, and didn't comment or anything. Then she was shoving the two of them into separate change rooms with stacks of plain white cotton cloths.

"These are my tester cloths." She told them. "They tell me which size you need to fit better than measurements ever could. Pass me back what doesn't fit and tell me why."

At the end of their two hour session both came out with a desert camo backpack and outfits. They got hiking boots and Tilly hats to protect their heads. Anna even supplied them with cotton undergarments. Water bottles and a set of pots and pans were shoved into their packs by old, experienced hands. The two of them were set with everything they would need by the time the woman was done.

"You both need to go to the Lords and Ladies mess hall now." Anna told them. "Dan and that nice girl Maya will be waiting for you. They'll be your senior officers this mission, so listen to what they have to say." She shoved them lightly to the door. "You'll get your mission objective from them."

The door shut with a resounding thud behind the two. "Any clue where the mess hall is?" Sapphire asked as she glanced around.

Ruby shrugged before walking forward. "Don't ask me. I'm new here too!"

**xXxXxXxXx**

"You'll take care of them won't you?" Yellow asked the couple in front of her. "We're just trying to show them what war is like before they get too far in."

The female member of the pair laughed softly. "Don't worry my queen. Dan and I will keep them safe." The male nodded at that.

The door creaked open and Lance walked in. He was already speaking as he looked up from the floor. "Yellow, Silver asked me to give these…" He froze when he noticed the couple in front of Yellows desk. "Am I interrupting something?"

The woman laughed again before shaking her head at Lance. "Dan and I were just leaving, knight. You may continue to speak to our queen in peace." With that said the couple swept out of the office, closing the door behind them with a thump.

Yellow sighed before shifting to sit on the corner of her desk. "Those were Dan and Maya just now. Sapphire and Ruby will be well watched over."

Lance settled beside her and placed the folder in her hands. "That's Silver's report on the situation with the breeding center up by Mt. Sliver. I could go and resolve it if you would like?"

"No." Yellow shook her head as she ran her fingers over the brail. "I'll send Ellenor to deal with it. She has been going stir crazy lately."

"Some exercise will do her good." Lance agreed. A second later he shot her a sly look. "You are free for the rest of the afternoon, right?"

Yellow nodded hesitantly. She felt almost like she was about to step into a trap. "I am."

"You have time to dine with me then." He told her with a faint smirk. "In my rooms tonight. You need to relax and I promise to be excellent company."

She went to disagree, but the moment her amber eyes met his claret orbs she knew she had lost the argument. "I'll have the cook prepare dinner for two then." She told him. _'Hah! Control over what we eat. The upper hand is mine.' _She thought.

Lance shot her a look that just screamed 'I know what you just tried.' "Remember to tell them to send it to my room." He said. Yellow huffed. His room was his territory; the home advantage went to Lance.

"Shall we meet at seven tonight, then?" She asked. A faintly superior smile flitted across her face. Control the timing gave her another advantage.

Lance suppressed a laugh. Who would have thought playing a game of one-upmanship with Yellow could be so amusing. "I'll set the table for _two_." There was a faint innuendo in his voice that made the blond squeak.

With a faint nod she sprung up and hustled out of her office. Lance smiled after her. She had, after all, by leaving handed the power and control over to him this evening. He was going to enjoy this so _very_ much tonight.

He was looking forwards to catching his queen.

**xXxXxXxXx**

In the center of the Lords and Ladies (or senior members) mess stood two young couples. Ruby and Sapphire stood looking at the two who would be their group leaders in their first ever mission.

The woman, who had introduced herself as Maya, was in her late twenties. She had pink hair that had been done up into a formal bun on the back of her head. Her skin was quite pale, but both Ruby and Sapphire saw her lab coat and correctly deduced that she doesn't spend much time outside. Her warm brown eyes twinkled as she noticed their scrutiny.

While Maya was only around five feet tall, the man beside her was around six feet and looked younger than her. He had shaggy brown hair and eyes with heavily tanned skin from a life outdoors. His cloths, well-worn light green combats and a brown Tilley hat with several scuffs, showed him to be an outdoors lover. A friendly grin was splashed across his face as he waited for them to speak.

"What is our mission?" Ruby asked after he was done studying the couple.

Maya smiled sweetly as she leaned on Dan. "We are to go to Cinnabar Island. Team Rocket is mining fire stones there, and we have to stop them."

Dan took over from there. "We'll get the mining machine and break it while you two steal the only shipment they've mined so far."

"Dismantle it, love." Maya reminded her husband. "If we can bring it back to the lab my team and I can study it to see how advanced the technology Team Rocket has."

"And if you can't dismantle it?" Sapphire inquired.

Dan and Maya shared a significant glance. At the same time they turned to the Hoenn trainers sporting mischievous grins. "We blow it up!"

Sapphire shared a smile as well. This mission was starting to look fun!


	13. Chapter 12

A/N: I have a question for you guys. Are you annoyed with the quotes at the start of the chapters? Do you actually read them? Are you upset with the fact they foreshadow the theme of the chapter? Your thoughts would be wonderful here.

"_A woman's battledress in an army is the same as a man's is. A woman's battledress in everyday life is a pair of high heels and some makeup."_

_~Jamie Coull_

**xXxXxXxXx**

Yellow stood in front of her mirror frowning. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and she was wearing a wool housecoat. Bottles of makeup and brushes sat all over the vanity.

"You should stop worrying so much," Silver said from where he was sitting behind her. "It _is_ just dinner." He didn't even look up from his perch on her dresser when she whirled around to face him.

Yellow glared at the redhead sitting on her dresser. "Yes, it is just dinner; A dinner alone with Lance in his room. It's kind of a big deal!" She stood there huffing at Silver for another instant.

Gold, who was sitting on the chair beside the table, elbowed Silver in the side. "He's your cousin," he said with a nod in Yellows direction. "Help her out a little, please love." The two shared a meaning filled glance. After a moment Silver smiled at Gold and put his book down.

"He likes the color red." Silver went on to explain. He wandered over to Yellow's closet and started digging through it. "Wear this," he added as he pulled out a skirt, "you'll want to look comfortable. This isn't a fancy dinner, but an evening between friends. Flats and a long sleeve shirt should be worn as well."

Half an hour later Yellow was standing in front of the two knights wearing a burgundy cable knit sweater and a black cotton skirt. The skirt had red and yellow roses embroidered on the hem and came down to below her knees. Her blond hair was brushed behind her shoulders and held out of her face by two red hair clips.

"Just put a little red eye shadow on." Silver added as he looked her over. "No other make up." Silver and Gold stepped back and smiled at their queen.

Gold laughed as he pulled Silver towards the door. "Knock him dead Yellow!" The door closing behind them seemed to be the signal for butterflies to start tripping on acid in her stomach.

"It's just dinner." Yellow reminded herself quietly. "Just dinner."

As she walked towards the door she passed her hand over the pair of black flats Silver had picked out and pulled up a pair of black high heels.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Sapphire stumbled away from the group when they finally appeared on Cinnabar Island. She had never traveled by Abra before, and had been unprepared for the strange feeling of teleporting.

Maya grimaced when she caught sight of the young girl. She recalled her Abra with a nod of thanks to the Pokémon and slid the ball back into her pocket. _'Hopefully the child gets over her motion sickness before we meet any Team Rocket members.'_ Maya thought as she walked over to Dan.

"How are you?" She ran her pale hands over the man's arm. "I know you hate teleporting."

Her husband shot her an amused glance. "Don't worry luv, I'll be fine." He boasted while stalking towards the large red rock they had teleported in front of. "Do you remember the password?"

Ruby leaned on the rock and ran his fingers over it. There were small hairline cracks in it that were too thin to be natural. Glancing over it Ruby realized that it was a carefully hidden door. Maya leaned past him and pulled a small bump of rock off the larger rock. Beneath it was a small screen.

"Password." The screen spluttered out.

Maya leaned forward before murmuring into it. "Pro libertate" she said softly.

The screen flickered for a second before speaking again. "Accepted. Opening door." A strange whirring noise could be heard. "Please step back."

A click sounded from behind the rock. Suddenly the center of the rock popped out and shifted to the side. Behind it was a set of metal stairs.

"We need to go down there and walk until we find the red door." Maya explained to the younger trainers. "The ruling lord of cinnabar will meet us there." She led them down the flight of stairs and into a long hallway. Ruby noticed that the hall was sloping downwards, but said nothing.

Nearly an hour (and several flights of stairs) later the group came to a stop out front another metal door. Maya turned around and caught the Hoenn trainer's eyes. "Being a ruling lord or lady has nothing to do with age or experience," she warned them. "Some of them are quite young. No one knows how Yellow picks them, but we have never had a ruling lord o0r lady who couldn't do their job when needed."

Dan took over from there. He coughed slightly before speaking. "The ruling lord of Cinnabar is very young, and like Yellow has a slight disability. Don't stare, and avoid rude comments. The people of cinnabar would fight to the death for their lord, and do not take kindly to insults about him."

Maya rolled her eyes at her over dramatic husband before knocking on the door. A panel at the top was slid open and a female face was seen. "Password?" she asked with distrust clearly written on her face. The girl's hard blue eyes swept over the entire group.

"Populo," Dan spoke out. The girl's eyes settled on him for a moment before she nodded.

"For the people," she scoffed. "They never come up with any good passwords here."

Sapphire blinked slowly before suddenly smiling. "All the passwords are in Latin aren't they?" she asked in a bubbly voice.

Ruby rolled his eyes before nodding at her. "The other password was 'pro libertate' which means 'for freedom'. Latin is the langue that was popular after the old rune tongue was forgotten but before modern English." He turned to Maya with curiosity on his face. "Who picks the passwords, and are they all Latin?"

It was the girl from the door who answered. "The ruling lord or lady choses the passwords, or assigns people to do it. Most pick Latin, but the ruling lady of Lavender Town likes to use riddles."

"Yellow will use lines of songs," Maya added. "But Silver is fond of trick questions and Gold will set the password to be about parts of the manor in Viridian."

The girl let them through the door with a sarcastic flourish. "You know where to go Maya." She spat. "Don't let the door hit ya on the way out."

Maya ignored the rude teen to step daintily through the door with her head held high. Dan and the others followed quietly. "Come on," she told them softly, "I heard Orange was going to be here to study the firestones. I haven't seen her in ages."

"I heard that Michael would be returning to Viridian soon too." Dan told her. "The whole group is almost home."

Maya sighed. She seemed to have forgotten the Hoenn trainers. "Nessa won't be coming home."

"Her Pokémon still remain." Dan argued. "Her loss is not forgotten, and her Pokémon still remain in her memory. We may have lost her to death but we haven't lost her memory."

Maya's eyes met Dan's for a second before she stormed off. The other three raced after her, but Sapphire and Ruby kept quiet. It was clear that the rebellion had lost members like this Nessa person before, and it was clear that they would lose more before the war was over.

It was a sobering thought for the two young adults from Hoenn.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Yellow took a deep breath and opened the door to Lance's room. She tried to ignore the fact that Gold had stuck Lance in the rooms beside her rooms. No one had said anything about it, so she assumed that no one realized that her consort was supposed to claim those rooms. Yet somehow her face still flushed when she thought about it.

Lance just smirked at her when she walked in. Yellow might not know it but Lance was equally aware of what the rooms he was sleeping in meant as she was. He was just enjoying it more.

"Come into my parlor," he teased her as she slid into his room. There was a two person table set up, and Lance was sitting on one seat.

Yellow couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Said the spider to the fly," she responded tartly. "I don't feel like being eaten today."

Lance didn't laugh, but both of them were aware of the amusement in his crimson eyes. He offered a glass of wine and a smile as she sat down. The table was lit by a tray of six Pokéball shaped tea lights that ran across the center. "If you'll let me eat you, little fly, I promise to make it pleasurable for the both of us." his lips pulled up into a feral smirk as he spoke.

Yellow couldn't help but flush at Lance's words. He hadn't said anything inappropriate, but the way he'd said it was. His voice had dipped into a low and husky tone that just made her feel like he'd said something naughty to her.

"I wouldn't really call you a spider." Yellow reached for her spoon as she spoke. She'd picked a mushroom soup with Magikarp fillets for their dinner. She'd asked for Viridian wine from before team rocket won to go along with it. The cook had been only too happy to comply. "I'd call you one of those princess stealing dragons of lore."

She regretted her choice the moment the words were out of her mouth and the smirk on his face got larger. "I much prefer queens to whiny princesses," he told her. "Do you know where I can find one?"

She tried to ignore the urge to squirm in her seat, but she had a bad feeling it was only going to get worse as the night went on.

She had no idea how right she was going to be.

**xXxXxXxXx**

A young woman with long black hair and a flowing white dress moved around a laboratory. She glanced up suddenly when a young blond boy in a wheelchair rolled in. He didn't blink when he met her eyes even though the swirl of orange, blue, and pink in them made meeting them head on unsettling for most.

"We have guests." the boy said. As he rolled closer the woman ignored him to focus on her work. The boy frowned at that. He wanted her to be happy.

"It's Maya and Dan." he added.

Oddly colored eyes lit up as the female smiled. "On another mission here, are they?" Her lips remained pulled up into a smile as she moved to a different part of the lab. "Do you think they would mind if I helped out?"

The blond boy laughed and shook his head before spinning his wheelchair around. "I have to greet our guests now," he said. He rolled onto an elevator platform and set it to rise. The woman simply turned back to her laboratory and the Pokémon egg list before her.

As the platform took the boy away he yelled one thing at her. "Put some shoes on first dammit!"

**xXxXxXxXx**

Tension was coiling across all of Kanto. Pokémon had started to act restless and become more aggressive. The rebellion was training its members harder. Team Rocket became more frantic in its attempt to get any info on the fabled Viridian's Queen. Something was changing, and no one knew what. No one but a blond woman with a scarred heart who was scared to trust friends who had forgotten her once, and several trusted people who knew a truth long forgotten about the Queens of the Viridian forest.

The Queen makes her final stand when the forest itself marches to her aid, and the forest has started stirring.


	14. Chapter 13

A/N: Guys, I have a question I would like all of your opinions on. Things are going to be heating up for Lance and Yellow in the next few chapters, and I was wondering if you guys wanted the lemons to have warnings before them. I mean, this is an adult story rated M, and readers should have seen this sort of stuff coming, but do you guys want warnings anyways, and where in the chapter should the warning go?

_I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and, whilst abroad, underwent a course in military training. If there was to be guerrilla warfare, I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them._

_~ Nelson Mandela_

**xXxXxXxXx**

Maya watched in amusement as the two Hoenn trainers, Ruby and Sapphire, met the Ruling Lord of Cinnabar Island. She brushed her pink bangs out of her face and smirked towards her husband. Dan was studiously studying the ceiling above him.

"It's a nice ceiling," he told her. "I like this ceiling." Maya simply rolled her at her husband's attempt to ignore the awkward tension filling the room with idle chatter. She had more important things to worry about then ceiling architecture.

Ruby and Sapphire couldn't help but stare. They had been told that the ruling Lords and Ladies were in charge of their entire branch of the rebellion. They had been warned that some of the Lords and Ladies were young, and they had seen Lady Danna.

Somehow the thirteen year old in the wheelchair before them wasn't what they had been expecting. He was small with blond hair and blue eyes. The Hoenn trainers could easily see the family resemblance between this boy and Lady Danna.

"Hello," the boy greeted them with a sweet smile. "I'm the ruling Lord of Cinnabar Island Thomas Hikari. You are the team that Lady Yellow sent to deal with our Team Rocket problem, yes?"

Maya nodded before moving to hug the boy. "Thomas," she practically cooed, "It's so good to see you again." The Hoenn trainers got the unique experience of getting to watch the quiet woman squeeze the life out of the young boy with a crushing hug. Dan just looked on with resignation on his face. It was clear he expected this to happen.

The boy dramatically pretended to recover from suffocation before smiling impishly at Maya. "It's good to see you again Maya. You as well Dan. I haven't seen you guys in nearly a year since Yellow updated the laboratory under her manor. I guess you don't have to borrow my lab all the time."

"Brat!" Maya smacked Thomas lightly on the back of the head. "Tell us about team rocket."

Instantly all the laughter and happiness fell off the boys face like he was removing a mask. "They just came in and took over the town. Next thing we know the towns people are screaming about mining machines and glowing orange stones." There was a kind of steel in the boy's voice when he spoke next. "We tried to stop them, but you know that Cinnabar isn't really combat ready."

"Why not?" Ruby asked. "If you're a rebellion base and this is war then shouldn't you be combat ready?"

Dan sighed and shook his head. "It's not something we spread about kid," he said, "but the rebellion's bases are specialised. Each one is better than the others at one thing. Cinnabar is our research center. It has the rebellion's top scientists and best laboratories."

"Except for Maya and Jamie." Thomas pointed out. "But both of them have reasons to live at other bases. And besides, it would be really dumb to have the scientists here. What if we got discovered? Then the rebellion would lose all its best researchers."

"How are the bases specialised?" Sapphire spoke up for the first time.

"Cinnabar Island is the center of research and science, so all the major research goes through them. They also have the best laboratories, and most of the scientists trained here. Pewter City does most of the advanced combat training for members. Most of our manual workers get some training at Cerulean City." Dan started to explain. It had the tone of a long winded rant, but the Hoenn trainers listened in fascination. "That's the non combat members like the maids, cooks, and people like our supply offer Anna that outfitted you. They keep the everyday things going so others can focus on the war. Celadon City is where most of our supplies come from. Anna and the cooks trained there as well. People good at making things with their hands like Pokéballs and clothing train there."

Thomas took over for Dan to let the man catch his breath. "Saffron City and Pallet Town are both without rebellion bases, but there is a hidden safe house slash hospital hidden in Pallet Town specially for pregnant members and small children. Our nurses spend time here at Cinnabar for biology and psychology before learning practical healing in Pallet Town."

"Vermilion City deals with shipping and commerce. Our engineers spend time there as well to see the ships and learn about them." Dan was practically bouncing as he spoke. It was clear he loved this topic and knew a lot about it. "Fuchsia City trains our spies and info gathers. Jamie was born there. She's the spy who is highest up in Team Rockets food chain, so she gets the most relevant info. Lavender Town is Thomas' sister's place. Danna's base deals with knowledge and serves as our main library. It is also where Thomas, Maya, and I grew up." Dan grinned at them.

Maya had managed to slide her was back beside her husband as he was distracted by happily babbling on. "Viridian City is the place Lords and ladies go to so that they can be trained on running a rebellion base. Most of the lords or ladies can take over each other's bases in times of need as well."

"That's all fine and dandy," Thomas spoke up. He had started wheeling himself over to a lift as he spoke. "But you guys have a mission. Come with me and I'll brief you guys so that you can get started." Thomas made a hand motion and everyone followed him into the lift.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Yellow flushed as she glanced in the mirror at her hair. She knew that it probably looked mussed, as if she had slept on it (she had), but she knew why it was really like that. The feeling of calloused hands running through it and using it to hold her still had followed her into her dreams. So had the heat of their bodies pressed against each other and the feeling of his kiss.

That had been searing and consuming. She really shouldn't have let him do that. She really shouldn't be thinking about doing that again. Her lips had been so swollen once he was done.

Yellow wasn't even sure how it had started. They had been having dinner. She'd teased him and he had teased her back; eventually she'd teased him about having dinner with her rather than whatever lover he had at home. It had all gone down hill from that.

How was she supposed to know he'd kiss her as proof that he didn't have a lover? All that built up passion and he'd directed it all on her. She hadn't had positive male attention since before Team Rocket took over.

She glared into the mirror then. She wanted to see the color of her blush. To watch the memories light up her eyes and to see the color of her still slightly swollen lips. Instead all she saw was blurs of colors and movement. Her eyes wouldn't light up because they were covered with the misty white layer of her damaged cornea. The muk's poisonous attack would have completely eaten away at her eyes and killed her if Silver hadn't been there with his Feraligatr. The under powered water gun attack into her face had saved her from death, but couldn't save her sight.

Yellow wondered if Lance knew exactly how blind she is, and if he would still want her.

She decided to find out. Lance would be coming with her on her next mission. She wondered how well the leader of the elite four would deal with the new rules of combat that Kanto played under. Did Lance even know how to use a weapon?

Yellow supposed she'd find out soon enough.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Maya watched the Hoenn trainers with an expressionless look upon her face. They had taken the orders to capture all Team Rocket members and eliminate their Pokémon rather well. Both had clearly been hesitant when told that the Team Rocket members would use their Pokémon to attack them. Before the Great Takeover attacking another person with a Pokémon attack was a jail worthy crime. Team Rocket had turned it into a necessity in battle against them. She didn't think the kids were ready for that kind of fighting.

Yellow had tasked her with getting the kids ready. She didn't really have a choice. Old soldiers had called seeing war looking at the Kraken. Maya liked to call war the great abyss. It would swallow your morals and eventually destroy you, but someone had to fight in it to save the others. Some one has to sacrifice themselves.

Maya didn't want any of the sacrifices to be kids who never should have left their home region or gotten involved in the insanity that Kanto currently was.

Maya glanced over to her left and flinched when she saw her husband watching her. It was clear that Dan had figured out the basics of what she had been thinking. Maya remembered before the war had started. Dan had been a carefree trainer with five badges who had followed her around like a lovesick puppy. That Dan didn't know the feeling of blood on his hands and the scent of a battle field when the bodies start to rot. Maya regretted getting that Dan involved in a war that wasn't his.

She was going to be doing that to two more innocents. Legendries save her soul because she would never forgive herself if their actions stole those children's lives the way the war had stolen her and Dan's.

"We should split up." The entire group turned to look at Maya when she spoke. There was something off about her voice that unsettled everyone there. Only Dan knew what the look on her face meant. He saw it most often when she thought that what she was doing was unforgivable. They had all made sacrifices for the war, but Maya had been forced to throw away all her morals and beliefs to help the rebellion.

Ruby frowned thoughtfully. "Why? Wouldn't it be best to stay together so that we all have backup?"

"You'll be going together to catch up with the Team Rocket members who are probably loading the firestones right about now." Maya explained as she pointed to a set of tire tracks nearby. "Dan and I will go and get rid of that machine before joining you in the fight. You two just have to last until we get there to help out. It shouldn't take too long."

With a nod to the Hoenn trainers in respect she stalked off. "What the hell is her problem?" Sapphire scoffed as Maya turned a corner and left there sight. Dan smacked both young adults on their backs before racing off after his wife.

"Lets just get going," Ruby said. He had a feeling that Maya didn't want to send them off alone, and that she had probably left because she was mad at her orders. Ruby had another feeling that the orders came from Yellow but were really from Lance. Those two had been joined at the hip since Lance had seen through that trick with the bones and the wine.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Lance slammed his fist into the wall of the room he had been given. He'd been so close and he'd messed it up with one little slip of judgement. He'd been so relaxed with the good wine, good food, lack of worry over what his cousin was doing, and without the pull. That pull between Yellow and the children of the Viridian forest had just gotten stronger and stronger between him and her. Their close contact (as it seemed that only with skin on skin contact did the ache stop) had allowed him relax fully.

The next thing he'd known they were halfway done the wine and teasing each other about their sex lives. Lance had correctly guessed that Yellow hadn't taken a lover since before the 'Great Takeover' (as everyone in Kanto seemed to be calling it) and had teased her about it quite a bit.

Okay so maybe calling her a virgin had been taking it a little far.

She'd started teasing back though. Lance had thought that getting her tease back was a success for their first date. Then she'd asked why he was having dinner with her and if he had a love waiting back for him in Johto.

Lance glared heatedly at the wall in front of him. He'd screwed up big time then. Yellow was shy; someone (or multiple some ones with Pokédexs in common) had made her feel worthless. They'd stolen her self confidence, not that she'd had much of it in the first time, and he had hated to the look on her face when she'd asked if he had a lover. She'd looked as if the only reason he wanted her company was because his (nonexistent) lover wasn't there.

He'd kissed her then. It was his big mistake of the evening. He'd just meant to show her that he wanted her for her.

The next thing he'd known they were up against the wall all over each other. She'd tried to pull away and (in the heat of the moment) he'd stopped her by wrapping his hand in a fistful of that ridiculously soft yellow hair. Their little make out session may have upgraded into grinding against each other and more heavy kisses.

She'd fled the moment he'd hiked her leg up around his waist. Yellow's eyes had been wide while her lips had been swollen and red. Lance had felt a moment of masculine pride (it was **him **that had made her so debauched and it was _**him **_who would have her) before the horror had taken over (how could he be so stupid as to risk scaring her off?).

He'd scared her, ruined it **all**, and now she'd never let him near her again. He'd spent so much time worming his way into her life. He'd found a way to involve himself in most of her daily routine. He had always sought her out when he had free time. He'd helped her with her work, with training the rebellion members, with designating missions.

Some rebellion members thought he was her new second in command. It was a fitting place for the Champion of the elite four, so Lance could see how they thought that. It was even kind of true in a sense. He did do everything with her and she did ask him for his opinion.

A couple of younger members thought he was trying to take over. Those rumors had stopped when they had found out he was a child of the Viridian. Anyone who knew the old tales of Viridian's queen knew better than to accuse one of the forest's children of betraying its queen. Their own powers would consume them alive in punishment.

Someone should probably fill Team Rocket in about that fact. Maybe then they would stop trying to kidnap Danna...

The newest rumor was that they were lovers. The entire Viridian City base had watched with bated breath as they flirted and stepped around each other for the last handful of days. Everyone thought he had taken the empty role of first knight for his own.

Lance really wanted that to be true. He wanted to be the first knight, the consort, and have her all to himself.

"And yet I've royally fucked up." Lance hissed in self disgust.

He went to berate himself for his stupidity all over again when a knock sounded on his door. Lance pulled the door open to be met with Silver. There was an amused look upon his face. "Yellow needs to see us," Silver informed his cousin. "What did you do to her anyway? The poor girl has a love bite the size of a Pokéball on the side of her neck. Her lips are still swollen too."

"Is she mad?" Lance asked worriedly.

Silver grinned at his cousin. "I don't know. She's too busy blushing every time someone asks her about it to answer me." The two men shared amused looks as they headed off to Yellow's office. Lance secretly hoped she was just embarrassed. Maybe he hadn't screwed up after all?

Hopefully he still had a chance.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Maya and Dan stood pressed flat against a wall as they stared avidly at the mining machine before them. It had been left with only one guard, most likely because team rocket believed that the people of Cinnabar Island would be too scared of them to try anything. Or maybe they were just really incompetent. Maya was never sure with them.

"Should I take care of the grunt?" Dan asked. He knew better than to just jump in and go do whatever he wanted. Maya may want to lure the grunt away or even to wait to see if the grunt would leave. Yellow had left Maya team leader for a reason.

Pink bangs fluttered in the wind before Maya reached up and clipped them back into her hair with white hair clips. She frowned thoughtfully as she judged the worth of the grunt before them. "Just knock him out and tie him up," she said eventually. "We may need the information he may have... if he has any."

Dan had a Pokéball in his hand a second later. "Do you want him rare or medium?" The fire type trainer purred at his wife.

Maya's eyes lit up and she smirked at her husband. He'd said something very similar on their first mission together. "Are you going to ask me out on a date after?" She teased Dan with a soft smile on her face. "And I want him barely scorched since I'd hate to have to wait for him to heal from burns to interrogate him. Now hurry up; I'm worried about the newbies we let go after the probably more dangerous Team Rocket members."

Dan nodded before jumping up and flinging out his Pokéball. A charizard was left when the red light faded. "Ignis!" Dan yelled as he jumped out and caught the attention of the rocket grunt. "Use slash!"

The rocket grunt jumped out of the way and let out a zubat. "Zubat use confusion." He ordered it as he pulled out a knife.

Before he could the deadly object Dan was in his face clocking the grunt over the head. He didn't faint, but the grunt did stumble backwards and drop the knife. Before he could get up and grab his weapon Dan punched him again. This time in the face. The zubat turned towards the noise of his trainer's noise breaking and failed to dodge the flamethrower sent its way. It fell as a flaming dart to the ground.

"Good job Ignis!" Dan crowed as he tied the rocket grunt up. The charizard happily stomped before moving over to where Maya was already tinkering with the mining machine. The pink haired scientist only spared the orange dragon a single glance and a nod before turning back to her work. She was used to Ignis looking after her and acting as a bodyguard when Dan was busy, so the large Pokémon's presence didn't disturb her at all.

Maya drew her hand back swiftly after a microchip on the inside of the machine sparked at her "Dan!" she screamed in pain as fire lit the sleeve of her lab coat. Her husband was at her side in a second swiftly crushing out the flames and cradling his wife's burnt arm.

"Maya!" He ran his hands against her skin and held her gently as he pulled out a field first aid kit. "Hold on while I put some burn cream on this. Did you figure out how they made the machine or do we need to take it apart and take it back with us?"

The pinkette nodded slowly as her husband slathered burn cream over her burnt wrist. She flinched slightly as the cream was smoothed over blisters and skin that had started cracking, but she knew better than to complain. The rebellion's burn cream had been invented by her friend and fellow researcher Anne. It is a mix of burn heal spray and a cream made out of some plants from the Viridian forest, and it was the most advanced healing agent for burns that Kanto had ever seen.

"I stole the main computer from inside of it. That is what started the fire honey, oh... and we can blow the rest up now." Maya laughed as her husband as his eyes lit up at the thought of blowing up the big machine. "You're such a pyromaniac sometimes." She teased her husband with a grin.

The fire type trainer simply shrugged before helping his injured wife up. "Go stand over near the path we will have to take to find the kids." He told her as he fingered another Pokéball. "I'll use Calamitas to finish this up so you can take Ignis with you."

Maya and Ignis, who would have been pouting if it was possible for a Pokémon to do so, moved out of the blast radius. Once he saw that his love was safe Dan tossed the Pokéball up into the air with a smirk. The Arcanine that appeared looked about lazily before shaking himself and bounding over to Maya.

"Can I have my Pokémon back?" Dan huffed. This happens every time he tries to use his Arcanine, so he was used to it. That doesn't mean he has to like the fact that his Pokémon has a crush on his wife.

Maya petted the fire dog while shooting her husband an amused look. "Are you jealous?" She teased while she crouched down to give the canine a belly rub.

"No." Dan lied before sauntering up and catching his Pokémon's attention. "I just thought that we needed to hurry and blow up this stupid mining machine so we could go help out the Hoenn kids who are probably fighting some team rocket grunts by now."

The Arcanine's ears perked up at the words 'blow up' and it happily trotted over to its trainer. Dan pointed it at the machine and laughed cruelly. "Flare Blitz!" He commanded. The excitement was clear in his voice.

Ignis wrapped his wings around Maya. The charizard knew better than to leave her unprotected in an explosion. She'd gotten burned several times when he was just a charmeleon and had been too small to cover her. There was nothing Dan and Ignis hated more than an injured Maya (except maybe when she was crying... that was pretty bad too).

When the fire type unwrapped his wings from around her Maya stood on the side of a several centimeter deep blast crater. Dan stood beside her with his arcanine Calamitas grinning like a madman. His face was covered in soot and his hair was blown up in complete disarray.

She couldn't help but smile at him. He just looked so much like the boy he used to be who'd blown up their lab when they were chemistry partners at that moment. "We should go find the Hoenn kids before one of them ends up killed and Yellow yells at us for emotionally scarring recruitments again." Dan announced out of the blue interrupting her thought process.

"Next time you try to seduce me in my lab right before the new recruits are due to get their tour I'll remind you of this." Maya snapped as she started walking towards where they had sent Ruby and Sapphire. "Lets just go help the munchkins."

Dan rolled his eyes before turning to his two Pokémon. "What's her problem?" he asked them. The two fire types just shook their heads at their trainers stupidity. It's a good thing Maya has so much patience, because otherwise she might have murdered Dan by now.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Yellow idly reviewed her list of reasons only she and Lance were needed for the newest mission. Well... second newest, but she basically made up the other one.

She closed her (basically useless ...but she wasn't upset about that at all) eyes and spread her mind outwards. She could feel Danna two doors down in the library reading up on whatever had caught the young girl's attention. Focusing farther outwards she could feel the aura's of One of her knights and a child of the Viridian walking towards her office. That would be Silver and Lance. Her other knight (Gold) was running up behind them. He was followed by four boys and a girl. Those would be the Kanto Pokédex holders and Wally. She'd called them as well because she had missions for all of them.

"Why are you separating the 'Dex holders?" Ellenor asked softly from where she was sitting on Yellow's desk. "Don't they work the best together?"

Yellow turned to stare at the redhead before her. The girl was knitting two socks at once on a circular needle. The socks were being knitted with shiny blue yarn. "This is war." She pointed out to the redhead as the auras drew closer. "They won't always be able to fight together, so I'm giving them experience working apart."

Elli nodded slowly. "And you and the dragon master? Do you need to practice working apart, or together?" The girl was still smirking, and Yellow was still blushing when the others walked in.


	15. Chapter 14

A/N: I'm so sorry this took so long. Stuff happened. Stuff like being attacked by a pitbull, causing a car accident, getting sick, doing my online math course (gahh... math), and hanging out with my younger siblings.

_War! that mad game the world so loves to play._

_~Jonathan Swift_

A white lab coat was thrown onto a hook as its owner stormed around her borrowed bedroom. She shucked off a name tag that read 'Pink', which landed beside one that said 'Annie', and grabbed the one that said 'Orange' as she stalked around the room. Irritation showed in her tri-colored, madly swirling eyes as she grabbed a hairbrush from her bedside.

"Trust Thomas not to tell me my friends are on a mission with untrained newbies for backup until after they set out." The girl huffed as she grabbed several small purses. "I'll probably only need my party for this..." She pursed her lips together when someone knocked on the door.

"If you do it I'll be very annoyed with you." Thomas called through the door at his friend.

The girl, Orange, rolled her eyes at that. "Do you really think you can stop me in your wheelchair?" She asked him as she finished up collecting her things. "We both know I can book it past you and down the hallway before you can get the chair turned around. Besides, I'm done here."

Although she couldn't see it, Orange knew that her friend was frowning on the other side of the door. "You came here at my request for two reasons. You can't leave until those are done." She could practically hear the pout in the boys voice.

"I've already chatted with your breeders and done all the lab work needed for the experiment. I'm done here, so I can leave to help them." Orange smirked as she talked to Thomas.

The blond boy opened the door to speak to his friend face to face, but Orange used that moment to make her prior mentioned escape. She raced past the blond in the wheelchair with a grin and ignored Thomas's annoyed shouts as she booked it down the hallway to the elevator.

She knew she'd get yelled at later, but what was the point of having friends worried over your safety if you didn't give them a reason to panic every once and awhile?

**xXxXxXxXx**

Ruby and Sapphire were hiding out beneath a boulder having followed the tracks of the Team Rocket vehicle to where they were preparing the firestones for shipment. The two Hoenn trainers were sitting and studying their opponents movements to decided the best course of action. At least that is what Ruby had told Sapphire they were doing.

"Remind me why we can't just overpower them and snitch the shipment." Saph said as she leaned around the boulder for a better look at the shipment containers. Ruby could see just how eager she was to get going, The brunette was squirming in her spot and fingering her Pokéballs. Her excitement practically radiated off of her.

For a second Ruby wanted to snap at her that this was a very important mission so they couldn't just wing it like usual, but he stopped himself. Sapphire didn't have the kind of training Ruby did when it comes to planning battle strategies. She probably wasn't thinking of how important this mission could be to a war effort that was apparently almost a year old. Now, Ruby knew that a year isn't very long for a war, but he also knew that Kanto hadn't been prepared for a war. Besides, this was a guerrilla war, and as such had lasted a ridiculously long time.

"I have a feeling the war is going to pick up its pace soon." Ruby warned the girl at his side. She would have ignored what he was saying if it wasn't for the worry in his voice. The hint of uncertainty and fear made Sapphire turn to look at Ruby as he spoke, and was the reason why she actually paid attention to him and not the grunts. That would later turn out to be a near fatal mistake.

Just after Sapphire took her eyes off the grunts a brunette woman in a black dress with the Team Rocket 'R' on the front of it walked out from behind one of the boxes of stones. Neither Hoenn trainer noticed her as she swiftly headed towards the jeep the grunts had used and disappeared inside of it.

"Why would you say that?" Sapphire asked her mission partner.

Ruby hummed low in his throat before leaning against the boulder. His red eyes caught Sapphire's blue ones and held her in thrall. "Because of several reasons. First of which is that Yellow has more powerful trainers at her disposal now, so she can step up her own offence. Second is that having the Kanto Pokédex holders here will raise the rebellions moral. Then you have fact that Yellow is sending more people out on missions, so clearly the war effort is moving forwards. Plus you have the fact that Lance and Steven are both here so she has two different people who have been champions at one point in their lives. I mean Lance is still champion,

and, trust me on this, lots of really good trainers have been spending the past several years trying to take that from him."

"Okay, okay!" Sapphire rolled her eyes. "So she got new, powerful people to help her out. This is war. Doesn't she need an army?"

The the very much put upon sigh that Ruby released left Sapphire feeling like she had just asked a stupid question. "Guerrilla warfare is when a smaller group of people, which can include both soldiers and civilians, use methods like sabotage, ambush, and raids to dominate and defeat a less mobile traditional army." Ruby explained with a distinctly teacher like tone. "They rely on the element of surprise and the fact that a guerrilla army is far more mobile than a traditional army to win a war. They, the guerrilla army that is, also take advantage of things like the terrain and the aid of the local population, and use hit and run tactics."

"So that means Yellow is fighting using smarts rather than brute force, right?" Sapphire pondered while digesting the information Ruby had just spilled out. "And how did you memorise all that?"

Ruby shrugged in response. He wasn't really up for explaining how his father had made him memorise war tactics so he could follow his father's footsteps as a gym leader. "That's not important. What matters right now is how we're going to fight all those grunts. There are several of them and only two of us."

"But you already have a plan don't you." Sapphire asked as she readied a Pokéball.

Ruby himself pulled out the Pokéball Nana, his Mightyena, was in. "We'll take them out as swiftly as possible in a surprise attack. Try not to take on more than two at once and be prepared for them to attack you physically. Maya warned me that the Team Rocket members have a habit of attacking other trainers. I'll try to take out as many as possible as soon as possible, but be careful anyway."

Sapphire nodded affirmative, but a look of worry appeared on her face. "Will we have to kill people?" There was a tremble in her voice when she asked.

Ruby sighed again but didn't get mad. She'd never really seen a war, and had never killed anyone. Neither had he for that matter, but he was better prepared mentally anyways. "An enemy you don't kill is an enemy that can get up and stab you in the back later." He warned her. Hopefully she would take his words to heart and do whatever she needed to take an enemy out of the fight, but Ruby made a special note in his mind to keep an eye on her during the fight anyways. He had a feeling she might leave an enemy in a position where they could hurt her because she didn't want to take them out.

For all her wildness Sapphire was still a young girl with no blood on her hands. Killing, even an enemy, was probably against her morals.

**xXxXxXxXx**

"We have a problem." Maya announced randomly. She looked down at the tire tracks they had been just about to follow to Ruby and Sapphire before sighing.

Dan watched for sigh before shrugging. "And that is?" he asked lazily. His Charizard waddled up beside him and growled. Ignis hated walking, but a flying Charizard in the air above them might give their position away to enemies.

"We forgot the grunt at the blast site." Maya's tone made it very obvious that she was less than impressed with the setback. She sighed. "We can't just leave him because he might have good information, but going back means we'll be late to meeting up with Saph and Ruby."

Dan returned Ignis and swiftly pulled out Calamitas's Pokéball. The Arcanine happily ran over to Maya. She rolled her eyes but let him sniff her burnt hand and arm.

"We'll ride Calamitas back and pick up the grunt. Then you and the grunt can ride him back while I run beside him." While he was speaking Dan was also busy helping his wife onto the Arcanine's back, so she really didn't have time to argue. He jumped on behind her and encouraged the Arcanine to race back to the blast site.

"Hopefully Ruby and Sapphire don't run into anything but a couple of grunts." Maya worried. From his seat behind her Dan could feel the tension in her. He pulled her closer while being careful of her injury, and rubbed her shoulders.

Maya relaxed into her husbands arms and felt him smile behind her. "Unless they run into a Team Rocket Admiral they should be fine." he pointed out in a reassuring voice. "And how likely is it that one decided to supervise the firestone removal? No one has seen an Admiral on a mission in two months. They're all probably off doing something in another region."

"What if they left one behind, or they came back and there is an Admiral with the stones?" Maya asked before starting to worry her bottom lip between her teeth.

Dan slid his finger between her teeth and her lip to stop her from biting it. "They'll be fine." he reassured her. "I mean, really, what are the chances that the first Admiral to take a mission just so happens to decide guarding firestones is worth their time? The kids will be fine. Let's just go grab the grunt and then we can check on them, yeah?"

Maya nodded, but she kept silent for the rest of the ride.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Humming low in her throat, a brunette in a black dress looked over the tablet in her hands as she sat in a jeep. Her cold brown eyes were narrowed in anger as she read the information written on the electronic screen. Her fingers clenched over the screen for a second before slowly relaxing, and a frigid smile slid across her face.

"Well, well, well." She cooed out in a high babyish voice. "Looks like the boss is rewarding me with a firestone for agreeing to watch over this FUBAR mission."

Carefully she slid one of the glowing stones sitting in the seat beside her into her pocket. Pulling out a sharpie she swiftly marked the case she'd removed the stone from before sliding out a Pokéball number nine drawn on it. "Looks like you get to evolve now honey." The woman practically purred to the ball in her hand. "It's our reward for fixing this stupid mission those idiot grunts fucked up on, so use it well."There was an almost insane grin on her face as the brunette opened the Pokéball and pulled out the firestone.

Somewhere else on the island a young woman with many names and multicolored eyes shivered. She had a feeling her job was now going to be much harder.

**xXxXxXxXx**

"So we're agreed then?" Ruby asked quietly. "Attack on three?"

Sapphire nodded gently. "Yeah, attack on three." She fingered her Pokéballs and shifted into a crouch.

"On my count then." Ruby said before taking a deep breath. "One... two..."

**xXxXxXxXx**

Orange stood atop a large hill with a frown on her face. Dust was coating the hem of her white dress but the girl ignored it as she pondered her choices. She could go west to the rising plume of smoke that was probably from an explosion or she could head east and track down the place Team Rocket was planning on shipping the firestones from.

The wind chose that moment to blow her black and orange hair into her face. With an irritated huff the girl shoved it back into place before turning east. The safety of the firestones was, in the end, more important to the war effort than Dan and Maya. Orange had no doubt that it was her friends husband who had caused the explosion, so logically that meant that whatever was happening over there was probably over. The firestones were still in Rocket ownership and were far more important than checking on her friends.

With a faint nod of her head Orange made her decision and started heading east. She'd deal with Team Rocket then track down her friends and the two kids she'd heard they had been saddled with. It's not like they'd get mad at her for helping with the mission anyway. The more the merrier, as the saying goes.

Besides, she was still having bad feelings about all of this. Something big was going to happen, and she wanted to know what.


	16. Chapter 15

A/N:I'm so sorry this is late! School started (I'm returning for post grad extra education at my high school) and I've been really busy. My math teacher assigns several pages of homework a day and I've been dealing with a case of rabib-plotbunnyitis. On a good note said plot bunny has resulted in a oneshot for the Guerrilla Warfare universe. I'll put in up when I have it typed up since it was written when I was supposed to be paying attention in math.

Also, my spelling checker doesn't think 'fucked' is a word. Oddly, it considered fucked a word when there were apostrophes around it. This amused me.

**Guys**, this is a very serious **TRIGGER WARNING**. The will be people dieing in this chapter. There will also be people killed by Pokémon, swearing, Rocket Grunts threatening to (but not actually) rape someone, and there will be (obviously) some blood and gore. If any of this squicks you so much you can't read then you shouldn't read my story because these things will pop up often. The story is about a war after all.

To everyone else I say enjoy, and don't say I didn't warn you.

_War would end if the dead could return._

_~Stanley Baldwin_

Time seemed to slow down around Ruby as he spoke his next word. "Three"

Even as it slipped out from between his numb lips he was up and cracking open his Pokéball. Nana appeared and shook herself before taking in the scene. Before the Mightyena had time to really process what was going on Ruby was commanding it to attack. "Bite the grunts Nana, and don't let any of them get away." He told her. Desperately he tried to control the sick feeling in his stomach from setting a Pokémon on a human. This was war, and there is no time for morals in war.

Somewhere behind him Ruby was aware that Sapphire had released a Pokémon of her own to fight with, but his attention was drawn to the Team Rocket grunts before him as they released Pokémon of their own. there was no time to check on Sapphire as he had to pay attention to his three opponents all at once. There was a Zubat, a Beedrill, and an Ekans to battle.

"Nana bite the Zubat before hyper-beaming the Beedrill." He ordered his Pokémon. "Don't let any bug type moves hit you." The Mightyena was more than happy to follow orders. She lunged forwards and caught the surprised Zubat in her jaws. A sickening crunch was the last any of them heard of the Zubat.

Before she could hyperbeam the Beedrill Nana was accosted by the now angry Ekans. The hissing serpent lunged forward and attempted to wrap the hound, but Nana squirmed out of the way and nimbly shifted away. Ruby took a deep breath and kept on calling moves. He couldn't afford to lose this.

Deep in the back of his mind he pondered why Nana had killed the Zubat when normally they just knock Pokémon out, but he knew better than to ponder over that and get distracted in the middle of a fight. Still it worried him. He knew he'd heard about this because it was ringing bells in his head, but he couldn't remember where he had heard it or what it was about.

He'd look it up later, Ruby decided. Right now he had that stupid super effective Beedrill to take care of.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Moving toward the Pokémon battle she could see in the distance Orange took a moment to close her eyes and pray. One of the fighters she could see in the distance was going fantastic, but the other fighter seemed to be hesitating. Her heart was beating heavily in her chest as she ran forward. The hesitating battler must have been one of the children who had been with Maya and Dan. Who ever they were they were going to get their fighting partner killed.

She knew Maya would have split it so her and Dan each had one of the kids Thomas had told her Yellow had sent. She didn't want her friends to die. Not even by protecting younger fighters. Nessa had been lost that way, and they didn't need to lose anyone else.

Orange took a deep breath and sped forward hoping she wouldn't be to late to save another friend.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Behind Ruby Sapphire was directing her Aggron on attacking two other grunt's Pokémon. Rono was calmly slashing his way through the weak Pokémon the Rocket Grunts had put up. He carelessly used iron tail on a Koffing while Sapphire moved around the large Pokémon to get a better view. She was lucky that she moved because seconds later there was a knife whizzing past where she had been standing.

Rono roared in displeasure of the cheap trick and before Sapphire could stop him the Aggron had tackled the grunt. Something inside her cried out as Sapphire tried to ignore the mass of mangled flesh and bone fragments lying where a man had once stood. After all, people aren't designed to take a tackle from seven hundred and ninety three pounds of solid living steel and muscle. The blood dripping off her Aggron was even harder to ignore but she did it.

"Metal claw." She told him. He lunged at the foe's Arbok and neatly sliced a large chunk of its tail off. It was at this point that she realised that her Pokémon was putting far more power into his moves than he normally did. Often times that move would barely scratch the flesh of the tougher Pokémon they battled, yet this time Rono's claws had slid through the Arbok like it was made of butter.

The difference worried her because she didn't know why Rono was fighting like this. He'd never been like this. Then again, she had never fought in a fight like this either. Sapphire didn't like it. She missed the version of Pokémon battles she had grown up with.

The ones where no one dies.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Maya watched in frustrated silence as Dan tossed the unconscious and tied up Team Rocket grunt onto Calamitas's back. She impatiently huffed only to blush in shame when he shot her an frigid glare.

"Honey," He sighed, "I'm going as fast as I can, but since your hand is too damaged for you to help I had to do two peoples work. I'm done now. We can go."

Glancing down at her banged hand in anger Maya nodded slowly. "We can't all fit on Calamitas." She pointed out.

Dan slid a Pokéball off his belt and glanced at the ball for a second. Having assured himself that he had picked the right one the fire type trainer tossed it into the air and smiled at the Pokémon that was revealed. "I'll go on Calamitas and you can ride on Ardenti." He offered his wife.

Maya eyed the Ponyta for a second before nodding. "Can we go _now_?" She whined at him while mounting the cheerful Ponyta and ignoring her husbands smothered chuckle with practiced ease.

**xXxXxXxXx**

"You killed my brother you Bitch!"

Sapphire spun out of the way and narrowly dodged the attack of the screaming grunt. He came at her again with spittle flying and near rabid eyes. Rono snarled and swiped his tail at the man, but the grunt dodged.

Glancing at the bloody mass on the ground Saph shuddered. For a second she felt nothing but pity for the man attacking her. She'd killed his brother before his eyes in a horribly messy and traumatizing way. She'd hate herself to in his shoes. Then he managed to slice off several centimeters of her hair and she shoved her feelings aside to turn her attention back to the fight. No point in getting her throat cut for her pity, and besides, the Rocket grunts are the bad guys.

Everyone knows the villains always suffer in the end.

An insane light lit the grunts eyes. "I'm going to rape you and slit your throat you fucking whore!" He screamed at her. Sapphire hardened her heart and shot out a punch at the man. She caught him in the shoulder and he fell back with a grunt.

When he pulled out a leather sap she pulled out a knife from her camo pants. He was swinging the sap threateningly back and forth. His entire manner was set to intimidate. His face was scrunched in a frown and his shoulders hunched for size.

Sapphire wasn't intimidated in the least. Big he might have been, but some of the things she had seen were far more horrifying. She'd taken on Team Magma and Team Aqua. She'd seen Legendaries and fought for her life. She even knew how to use her knife. Plus, he was holding the sap wrong. Apparently Team Rocket doesn't train its grunts in hand weapons.

She lunged forward and smack his wrist with the flat side of her dagger. The yelp when he dropped the sap was incredibly satisfying to the Pokédex holder. With adrenaline surging through her system Sapphire stepped forwards and slashed. Blood ruptured from the man and splashed like a red rain down both of their chests. A second swipe of her knife split more blood and forced the man to back off.

Rono wasn't about to let the man get away. When the grunt stumbled back he was met with an enraged steel type. There was only a second for him to scream before the Aggron cleanly bit his head off. the sound of his trainer heaving in the background did nothing to discourage Rono from his impromptu lunch.

**xXxXxXxXx**

The loud sounds of a nearby Pokémon battle and screams drew the young brunette woman out of her trance. With a low huff she grabbed her Pokéball and shut off her tablet. "Looks like my nap time is over." She pouted as she clipped on her belt and checked the balls again.. "Pity. I was _so_ relaxed." She soundlessly opened the jeeps door and sidled out of the vehichle.

"Time to see what the brainless ones have fucked up this time." Her voice was petulent, but her grin was blood thirsty. She sounded childish and looked psychotic. The juxtaposition of the two was down right creepy.

She hummed Hypno's lullaby as she sashayed off towards the battles.


	17. Chapter 16

A/N: Hello readers. Not only do I have a new chapter for you, but I also have a oneshot put in the Guerrilla Warfare universe. It's called 'Secrets' and can be found on my author's page in a couple of minutes once I upload it. It may have some personal info on rebellion members that will be appearing in the next few chapters as we get to know them better, but no spoilers for the plot.

Also, before you read this chapter you might want to go back and reread chapter 13. At the bottom of that chapter is a scene with Yellow that continues in this chapter. Might want to refresh your memory since it has been a while.

Also, let us give a big round of applause to TheClockworkFaerie for betaing this chapter!

**xXxXxXxXx**

_Funny thing about revenge. It could make a killer out of a nun._

_~Kevis Hendrickson_

**xXxXxXxXx**

Ruby and Sapphire stood in front of the only grunt left having already returned their Pokémon. He was trembling faintly, but he still held a Pokéball in front of him. "Please give up." Sapphire pleaded with the terrified man. "We won't hurt you."

"You will not hurt me." The man agreed. The whites of his eyes were showing and he shifted from foot to foot like a startled Ponyta. He licked his lips and glanced over to where he knew the Jeep was. "But she will."

Sapphire's face scrunched in confusion. "Who, we're the only ones here right now."

An eerie tune suddenly caught everyone's attention. The grunt blanched and started crying, which worried Ruby. He chose to say nothing though, since making Sapphire unsettled would do little good.

"Are you humming?" Sapphire turned to ask Ruby. He shook his head and glanced worriedly about.

The sounds got louder and the humming changed to singing. _"Minds unravelling at the seams; allowing me to haunt their dreams,"_ the person singing sounded almost childlike. It was a creepy and disturbing sound that raised the hair on the back of Ruby's neck and made Sapphire frown.

_"Do not wail and do not weep. It's time for you to go to sleep."_ The grunt was hyperventilating so fast he was in risk of passing out, but Ruby and Sapphire ignored him. The voice was much more of a threat at the moment.

A flash of movement caught Ruby's eye and glanced up at one of the boxes. A strange brunette was settled singing on top of it. Sapphire noticed her a second later and turned to stare at the mysterious girl. _"Little children, you were not clever."_ The girl chimed softly. _"Now you'll stay with me forever!"_

The grunt gave out an agonized scream just seconds before his head shattered to bloody pieces. Grey matter and white chunks of bone went flying through the air in a grisly display of force in motion. "Oh legendaries," Sapphire moaned sickly when some of it hit her with a wet smacking sound.

The girls' eerie laughter distracted Ruby from his disgusted teammate. "Your Pokégods can't save you now." She cooed. There was a bloodthirsty look on her face as she leaned forward and examined the kids below her.

"Who the hell are you?" Ruby glared at the strange Team Rocket member. She was wearing a frilly black dress and black ballet slippers while twirling a Pokéball on her finger. There was a red 'R' on the front of her chest. To Ruby she looked sixteen, but it was hard to tell with girls her age.

She fluttered her brown eyes at him flirtatiously, but the cruelty on her face made the look more horrifying than seductive. "I'm Team Rocket Admiral Melody and the current leader of this mission. Who are you sweetie?"

"Like I'm dumb enough to give you my name," Ruby scoffed at her.

A flash of light later and an angry Ninetails with a strange collar was standing beside the girl. Beside it stood a Hypno, but the hypnosis Pokémon showed little expression on its yellow face. "Pity," The girl grinned. "I might have sent what was left beck to your parents when I was done with you."

**xXxXxXxXx**

Silver lead Lance into Yellows office with a faint grin. The flush on Yellow's face when she saw the dragon tamer was incredibly amusing to the redhead.

"They're cute, aren't they?" Gold said with a grin.

Silver didn't blink. He'd been aware that Gold and the others had been coming up behind him and Lance since the beginning. The footsteps gave it away. "Yeah," he said, "they are."

The Kanto Pokédex holders slid through the door with Wally following after. Seeing no one else Silver slid into the room and let the door seal behind him.

"I have missions for you all if you'd accept them." Yellow told the group when she heard the door close. "Don't feel like you must accept them though. They're volunteer missions. It's your choice to do them or not."

Blue shifted nervously but shrugged. Green and Red just watched Yellow, and since she didn't hear any announcements of people backing out she decided that they all must have agreed.. She didn't ask if the others were backing out. She knew they wouldn't.

Yellow shuffled the papers in her hands for a moment. "Green, Red, Wally. You three will go with Ellenor to the lavender Town base and figure out what Team Rocket is planning to. Do not get caught or blow anything up."

"That last one was aimed at me, wasn't it?" Elli grinned impishly. Yellow twisted around and smiled back, but said nothing in response. Elli's eyes flashed with amusement at the silent acknowledgement before she laughed sweetly. "You always pick on me Milady!"

Yellow shrugged before turning back in the direction of the people in front of her desk. "Danna will be leaving shortly and flying there posthaste, but I want you four to take the slow path. It will draw less attention than having all of you fly in."

"So we are going for stealth over everything else..." Green pondered aloud.

Yellow nodded sharply. "I hope you will do this to the best of your abilities." She aimed a smile at where she thought Green was as she spoke, but it ended up being directed more towards Red.

"We will do our best for Kanto." Green said. A look of determination filled his emerald eyes as he gazed at her. "It is our home."

A soft look slid across Yellow's face even as she adjusted her body to lean more towards where his voice had come from. "I know." She told him quietly. "I'm so sorry you had to see it this way."

The room was silent for a minute after that. Everyone was lost in thoughts about Kanto's ruin and destruction. It was a sorrowful moment.

"Why was I called in?" Blue finally broke the silence. Some of the people in the room jumped at the sudden noise. Elli dropped right off the desk to land in a heap at Yellow's feet.

Lance smirked at her. "Startled?" He asked teasingly.

"Sexually frustrated?" The child snapped back in a weak attempt to cover her embarrassment. "You and Yellow seem to have hit a dry spot."

Lance stepped back in shock and Yellow blushed. "Ellenor," she yelped at the child. "That is not an appropriate way to speak of or to your superiors! Mind your tongue!"

Elli glanced away in shame before standing up and settling back onto the desk. "Sorry..." She nibbled her lip and shrugged her shoulders lazily, almost as if to say 'my bad' without speaking.

"You should really learn to watch what you say Elli..." Yellow closed her eyes and gave a tired sigh. No one said anything as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Blue," she finally said, "you, Silver, and Gold will be leaving in three days time. I need you to go up to Pallet Town and see if **she** is done with her recovery yet. If she isn't then tell her to step on it. The fighting has started again."

Silver nodded solemnly while Gold grinned. "Can do boss!" The black haired boy winked jokingly before giving her thumbs up. Silver rolled his eyes at his lover's antics but left Gold to it.

"Who?" Blue frowned in confusion.

Silver stalked forwards and snitched a set of papers from Yellow's hands. She relinquished the set he was tugging on with ease. "These papers have our mission orders in full detail." Silver told the woman he considered his sister. Blue nodded slowly. "Gold and I will read them with you later and explain anything not clear enough." Silver assured her.

As Silver spoke Wally had moved forward and taken his mission orders from Yellow. "They should really put the titles in Braille so you can hand them out without help." The healer commented. He waved the papers at Red and Green. "I've got ours."

"Who's doing the last mission?" Silver glanced over at the final report in Yellow's hands. "Aren't we all already assigned?"

A faint smile overcame Yellow's face. "The final mission is for Lance and I to complete. It is only ranked a three, so we shall be fine."

"Rank three?" Lance blinked in confusion. "What is that?"

Upon seeing the confused looks on all the Kanto Pokédex holder's faces Silver stepped forward to explain. "Missions are ranked by how dangerous they are. Simple missions a new recruit can do are rank five. Fully trained members do rank four."

"People with some skill or groups that work well together can do rank three missions." Gold grinned as he took over. "Rank two is for the veterans and the Lords or Ladies."

Lance nodded slowly. "Then what is rank one?"

"A suicide mission." Elli answered coldly. "What else could it be?" The child let out a bitter laugh.

Lance frowned at the upset child. "Such things are necessary in war." He scolded her softly.

"But not fair." The girl argued back.

Lance's red eyes narrowed at her. "Life isn't fair." He shrugged. "One must simply deal with it."

"Enough." Yellow sighed before straightening up. "Debrief your missions within your groups. Do not tell anyone else about your missions until they are finished. It's a simple security measure, but it works well." With that said she shooed everyone from her office until only her and Lance remained.

Yellow jerked suddenly when Lance's arms suddenly surrounded her. "So then darling," He murmured in her ear. Yellow let out a squeak that made him grin as a shiver went through her frame before sinking against Lance. "Tell me about this mission of ours."

**xXxXxXxXx**

"What makes you think you are going to be the winner in this?" Ruby scoffed at the girl who had identified herself as Melody. He fingered a Pokéball as he spoke to her.

The girl blinked at him. "I've defeated better trainers than some little rebellion trainees. You have no chance of defeating me, honey. I'll give you and your girly friend thirty seconds to run if you want though."

"A true battler knows better than to judge their opponents at the first glance." Ruby taunted the girl before pressing the button on Feefee's Pokéball. The Milotic spun around her trainer and glared at the Pokémon before her. "Care for a try?" Ruby smirked up at Melody.

Although she didn't recognise the Pokémon, the Team Rocket Admiral paid little attention to her opponent. Melody waved lazily at her Ninetails. "Roast him alive." She ordered carelessly. The fox shuddered before obediently opening her mouth and spewing out a blast of fire. Both Ruby and Feefee simply jumped out of the way.

"Honestly, can't you do any better?" Melody sneered at her Pokémon before pointing at Ruby. "Kill him. I want to keep the funny colored snake as a trophy."

Ruby started in confusion. "Trophy?" He stared at her in shock. "You keep the Pokémon of your victims; you monster!"

The brunette laughed coldly. "It suits me well enough. This Ninetails was once a Vulpix of my greatest crowning achievement. I'm the one who managed to snuff out the rebellion's fox mistress." Melody laughed, baring her teeth in glee. "She screamed so prettily!"

"How did you even get it to fight for you?" Ruby jumped out of the way of another fireball.

Melody pulled a small remote control out of her cleavage with a cruel grin. "She listens to me to avoid the electric shocks her collar gives her if she doesn't. Nice system, isn't it?"

"Feefee, Water gun!" Ruby pointed at Melody as he ordered his Pokémon. There was clear disgust on his face when he looked at the teenager. "You're one sick little girl. I can't believe that the world could make something as ugly as you."

The Admiral jumped up and leaped off the crates she'd been sitting on. Her sudden movement saved her from the pressurised spray of water. "Kill him!" She shrieked angrily at the Ninetails. "Do you want to get shocked again beast!"

Before the enslaved fox Pokémon could do anything a new person joined the fight. "Phado use Rollout!"

Sapphire had jumped into the battle. The Donphan jumped out from behind a crate before launching itself at the Ninetails. His attack missed since the limber fox had no problem sliding past the rolling mass of Pokémon.

"About time you got back!" Ruby grinned at his teammate. With a flick of his fingers he directed Feefee towards Melody. "Icebeam Feefee!"

Melody easily dodged away from the attack. "Pathetic brats," She spat out. "But I suppose it's time to actually put some effort in. Hypno, attack!"

The yellow Pokémon stood from its spot on a pile of crates and jumped down to Melody's side. With a lazy swing of its pendulum it sent Feefee flying. Phado the Donphan was forced to dodge his flying ally as she hurtled past him.

"Use Rollout again." Saph called as she studied Melody. The girl didn't command her Pokémon so much as encourage them to just wing it. Sapphire scoffed. Clearly the girl was used to winning through brute force rather than strategy.

Before Phado could even get near the Hypno he was blindsided by a Fireblast from the Ninetails. The fire did minimal damage, but the sheer force of the blast destabilized the Donphan's spin. He was forced to abort his attack or risk hurting himself.

While Melody was distracted by Sapphire, Ruby reached into a pocket and pulled out another Pokéball. He crouched to cover the red light before releasing the Pokémon. A Plusle looked up at him in confusion.

"I need you to steal a Pokéball with a nine on it." He told the Plusle urgently. "Bring it to me."

The small Pokémon nodded before carefully sneaking away. The Pokémon was so small and stealthy that no one else had noticed a thing.

Ruby commanded Feefee, who had returned to his side while he was releasing the Plusle, to tackle the Ninetails. Sapphire took advantage of that to send Phado after the Hypno.

No one but Ruby saw the small red and yellow creature grab a Pokéball off of where it had been left on a crate.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Flares of light and fire caught Orange's attention as she raced forward. The rocky landscape of Cinnabar Island scattered swiftly past as she raced forward. Orange held a single Pokéball within her hand as she moved forward. "Please don't let me be too late!" She prayed.

**xXxXxXxXx**

"I'm not that easy!" Melody danced away from a Waterpulse from Feefee with a smirk. "Hypno, do your thing!"

Having been given permission by its trainer the Hypno began to swing its pendulum back and forth. As it did Melody began to hum a counter rhythm. "Ninetails," she purred, "attack now."

The pale fox shuddered before leaping in front of Sapphire and opening its mouth. As it did Ruby reached down and plucked a Pokéball from his Plusle's grasp. Before the Ninetails could even attack it was caught in a beam of red light.

"The fuck?" Melody blinked in confusion. "Where'd it go?"

Ruby chuckled as he spun the Ninetail's stolen Pokéball around on his finger. "I've liberated your

captive." He told her with a grin. "Looks like you're down a Pokémon."

"Oh, it doesn't matter." Melody huffed. A quick glance at the Hypno told her that it was swinging its pendulum. "You are both doomed anyways. There are no gods to save you now. In fact, you could say that I'm the only god here!" The Team Rocket Admiral cackled hysterically.

Sapphire went to call an attack only to stumble and fall down. "What?" She glanced around her and futilely tried to stand back up. It felt there was a wave of exhaustion making her want to just curl up and sleep. Her entire body ached from head to toe, and exhaustion had began to fog her mind.

When Ruby tried to race over to Sapphire he found that he was also caught in whatever was affecting her. Melody simply laughed as she watched the two stumble and fumble around hopelessly.

"You are now within my kingdom of domination." She told them cruelly. "Hypno will keep you all nice and compliant while I slash your throats, and you'll both be too tired to resist. Even your Pokémon are too tired to stop me!"

The two Hoenn trainers could only lay there and stare in shock as Melody pulled out a small pocket knife and moved towards them. A victorious smirk was passed across her face as she stalked towards her prey.

When she knelt beside Ruby he closed his eyes in despair. It was clear to him that the Hypno's powers was too strong for him to fight off in time to save his life, and he didn't want Melody to be the last thing he thought of. With a malicious smile, Melody raised her knife and prepared to slash the helpless boy's throat open. A single swipe of her arm made the knife fly towards his soft, pale, and unprotected neck.

There was a resounding clash as two metal blades met in the air.

**xXxXxXxXx**


	18. Chapter 17

A/N: Sorry things have been taking me so long. November is the busiest month of the year in my cadet core, and December is always busy for school stuff. Plus I've got Yuletide, Christmas, and birthday gifts to knit. Things have been a little crazy.

I promise updates will pick up soon. Hopefully this chapter satisfies those of you who can tear yourselves away from X and Y long enough to read it. Let's thank TheClockworkFaerie for doing a fantastic job betaing this chapter and, as always, please review!

_"The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth."_

_~ Lao Tzu_

Ruby stared wide eyed at the two crossed knives resting inches above his face. The two steel blades sparked slightly as they brushed against each other before they separated.

"Not on my watch Melody." Ruby's savor smirked. "You always were bad at the hands-on work."

Melody's face twisted into an ugly mask of shock and rage. "Orange," she spat out, "always getting in my way, aren't you."

"That's kind of my job, isn't it." Her tri-colored eyes shifted downwards as she shot Ruby an assessing glance. "The utter exhaustion you feel is just her Hypno tricking your mind kid. Focus your thoughts and you should be able to fight it off mentally."

A cruel smirk twitched to life across Melody's face. "Because that advice helped you save Nessa so much." The girl scoffed.

"Shut up!" Orange snapped angrily. A single flick of her wrist sent her enemy's blade flying towards some crates. Both females drew away from Ruby and started to circle each other like two fighting Mightyena looking for a weak spot. "You shame Nessa's memory by even speaking her name, you Team Rocket Filth!"

Lying on the ground too tired to move Ruby was suddenly hit with a startling realization. With the way the two girls moved it was clear that they were both trained fighters. It made sense, in a way, for the Rebellion and Team Rocket members to all be trained like soldiers, but Ruby hadn't really thought of it. To look at the two girls, because they were just young adults really, and see to trained warriors was jarring. It just didn't seem natural.

Closing his eyes Ruby tried to feel out the invasive presence. When he failed to do anything productive the Hoenn trainer switched methods. Rather than try to seal his mind he just stopped thinking. Sinking into a meditative mindset wasn't that complicated, and as soon as he did Ruby could feel the tendrils of exhaustion slipping away from his mind.

Keeping that inner peace within his mind the boy slowly stood up. When he opened his eyes the first thing he saw was Sapphire failing to fight the hypnosis.

"Saph," he called as he crawled over to her. Her panicked blue eyes rose to meet Ruby's as she struggled to lift her head.

Lifting her head into his lap so he could speak to her Ruby started to speak to the panicked girl. "You're being hypnotised." He warned her. "The exhaustion isn't real, and you can fight it. I'll help."

It took a lot of effort, but Sapphire managed to nod her head in acknowledgement. "Good. Now, all you have to do is clear your mind. You can only be hypnotised into doing something that doesn't go against your instincts, and only if you're receptive." Ruby smiled softly to reassure his scared companion. "That's why you can't verbally hypnotise a deaf person or visually hypnotise a blind person. What we're doing is similar. The Hypno is getting into our minds, but if you clear your mind there will be nothing for it to gain purchase on. Can you do that for me Saph?"

The brunette attempted to nod again. "Great." Ruby said with a smile. "Now I'm going to talk you through the steps of clearing your mind. Just listen to my voice..."

**xXxXxXxXx**

"You should just give up." Melody taunted the dark haired girl who was watching her. "Let us win. I promise that team Rocket will make Kanto powerful beyond all belief."

Orange's lips twisted into a mocking smile as she calmly slid another knife from her pocket. "Power isn't everything child and your Teams inability to understand that is why you'll never win this war."

"This isn't a war." Melody eyed the knife in her opponent's hand before pulling out one of her own. Knives were the easiest weapon to get a hold of, so most trainers had several on them at all times nowadays.

Orange's eyes drifted over melody's shoulder to something behind the girl, but snapped forward seconds later before the brunette team Rocket Admiral could notice the inattention. "Oh really, well what is it then?" Her tri-colored eyes darkened as Orange shifted sideways a little.

"An extermination of course!" Melody crowed as she violently tossed the knife in her hand towards Orange.

The Rebellion member's knife was also tossed out in that moment, and the two girls jumped to the side to avoid each other's weapons. Melody landed unsteadily and wobbled back a step before she could catch her balance.

Orange landed in a crouch and straightened swiftly. The two girls watched one another warily as they began to circle each other again.

**xXxXxXxXx**

"I think I've got the hang of this." Saph said slowly as she took a wobbly step forwards.

Ruby nodded distractedly as he mentally gauged her progress. Sapphire had taken less time to fight off the hypnosis than Ruby had, but Ruby seemed better at keeping in the calm mindset need to throw the Hypno off.

Sapphire wobbled again and Ruby reached over to steady her. "I don't appear to be very good at this." She admitted sheepishly.

"Don't worry about it. For now we should withdraw our Pokémon. They can't move on their own anyways." Ruby frowned as he spoke to his companion.

Sapphire nodded before pulling out her Pokéball and returning her Donphan. The poor guy had been struggling to stand up while under the impression that he was exhausted and gravity had suddenly increased. It had been both a heartwarming and saddening sight for Sapphire.

She frowned pensively. "How has that Hypno kept the attack up this long? You'd think that it would've gotten tired by now..."

"It was probably trained to use that one attack for long periods of time. Chances are high that it doesn't even know very many other moves." Ruby explained as he returned Feefee to her ball. "It's a strategy that was used often in wars across history. You train a Pokémon capable of affecting mass amounts of other Pokémon to use a single attack. Crude, but effective. The attack becomes overpowered, but the Pokémon becomes useless in a one on one fight."

Sapphire nodded thoughtfully as she pulled out a knife from her pocket. "So if we take out the Hypno then we win?" She aimed up her toss as she spoke.

Red eyes narrowed thoughtfully as Ruby watched her line up the toss. "Theoretically," He murmured. "It's still a Pokémon. If you don't kill it in one hit it could retaliate, and I don't know about you but I can't fight off a Pokémon barehanded."

"Don't worry so much." Sapphire grinned as she took aim for the final time. "I've got this."

A sudden jerk of her arm sent the knife smoothly sailing through the air into a shaggy yellow chest. The Hypno let out a startled noise and tipped over backwards while watch with a pleased smile on her face.

Ruby smiled back at her. "Good shot." He laughed softly as they turned from the dead Pokémon. "Now let's go help out with the Admiral."

**xXxXxXxXx**

"Why don't you pull out one of your Pokémon?" Melody sneered as she took several small steps to her left.

Orange matched each of her steps with mirror ones to the Rebellion member's right, careful not to let the Admiral gain any ground. "And let your Hypno's little mind games get to them?" She laughed at that. "I'm no fool. Only physic and dark type Pokémon are safe to fight with. We learned that the hard way with Nessa."

"I assure you, killing her wasn't in anyway a hard task." Melody crooned mockingly as the two girls stared each other down. "It was more like putting down a wounded Vulpix, ridiculously easy and amusing."

Orange's eyes narrowed dangerously, but she controlled her rage. "Are you done yet?" She snapped in an irritated tone of voice. The fake frustration did little to hide her true rage from her opponent, but it helped Orange control herself. As swift glance past the admiral's shoulder helped control the girl's temper even more.

"Maybe I'm not." was Melody's teasing response. "Maybe I'm only getting started."

Orange snorted. "I'm not so foolish as to give you that chance." Another glance behind Melody made the the black haired Rebellion member grin.

"You seem ridiculously pleased with yourself for someone who's about to die." Melody pointed out with a faint trace of confusion in her voice. The Team Rocket Admiral was used to people trembling in fear of her, not smiling at her threats.

Tricolored eyes flared in amusement. "What makes you think I'm going to die?"

"You can't win a physical fight against me Orange. We both know that in a human to human fight I'll kick your ass three ways to Sunday." Melody smirked coolly at her opponent as she stated those facts.

Orange nodded in agreement. "Probably not, but then again I'm not going to be fighting you."

Confusion flared rampant on the young Admiral's face. "What do you mean we're not going to fight?" The girl asked in confusion. In her confusion she straightened out of her fighting stance. "I'm with team rocket and you're with the Rebellion. It's what we do."

Before Orange could respond a strange noise caught both women's attention. From where they were standing Melody could just see her Hypno topple over off his perch, red streaming from his chest as he landed with a dull thump.

For just a couple second there was a completely dumbfounded and disbelieving look on Melody's face. Then the girl's knees gave out as she slumped slowly to the hard earth beneath her. Tears had started welling up as she watched her Hypno's candy red blood spill across the ground.

She seemed so small and lost without the Pokémon she'd been relying on for years, but Orange didn't notice any of that. Instead she just smiled over the Team Rocket member's shoulder as a twanging noise filled the air.

For just a second Melody's agonised eyes met Ruby and Sapphire's before a metal arrow its way through the tender flesh of its stomach. There was a sickening squelching noise as the projectile lodged itself firmly in her, and Melody looked down slowly in horror as blood began to squirt around it.

"The wound tore through your internal organs." A soft voice caught the dying Admiral's attention.

She croaked slightly as she tried to speak. "Maya..." Even more blood bubbled up through the wound as Melody spoke.

"Mels," Maya said sadly. "You always were such a bright kid. I'm sorry I have to do this, but you killed Nessa and joined them. None of that matters right now though. My arrow tore open your lower intestines. You only have a little longer before you go septic."

A sad smile slowly formed on Melody's face. "In war you fight, kill, and die for what you believe in." The girl seemed to be speaking to Maya and Orange, since they were right in front of the dying Team Rocket member, but her eyes were still focused on the two Hoenn trainers. "In the end that's all this was about."

There was a soft fluttering sigh and the light seemed to drain from the girls eyes. Gravity took over from there and dragged the still bleeding corpse to the ground.

Maya crouched down beside the dead girl and calmly checked for a pulse. Once assured that the enemy was dead she rolled the girl's body over onto her back. A gentle brush of her fingers closed the girl's eyes. "Goodbye cousin, may you find peace and rest in your next life." Maya said softly as she stood back up.

By then everyone had gathered around Melody's corpse. Dan and Orange held somber looks on their faces while Sapphire seemed shell shocked. Most likely she had never seen a person die outside of the heat of a battle before. Ruby just looked grim, although there was a subtle hint of sadness in his eyes when he looked at Melody's body.

"More useless death in a war that never ends," Maya said softly.

Dan shifted to her side and wrapped his arms around his wife. "I messaged Thomas." he told her calmly. "People are already over to collect the firestones and bury the dead. He said we could take Orange and leave now if we wanted too."

"Come on Maya," Orange added. "Let's go home. I want you to see my cousin."

The heart wrenching look remained on Maya's face as she pulled out a Pokéball and released her Abra. "Yeah," she murmured, "cousin. An alive one."

No one said anything else for the rest of the trip because, in the end, there was really nothing to say.

**xXxXxXxXx**


	19. Chapter 18

**A/N:** And here's another chapter for you guys. TheClockWorkFearie is still betaing this for your viewing pleasure, so many kudos to her!

Also I'm really sorry about not updating. What happened is that our antivirus died and I couldn't type anymore. I had to type each key with a two second delay between them or the computer wouldn't notice that I was typing, and even then it skipped half the letters I typed. Now that we have a new antivirus I can type more than one paragraph every half hour, so expect updates to resume.

_ "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."_  
><em>~ Robert Frost<em>

Steven Stone stood across a desk from Yellow. The two watched each other calmly, but there was tension in the air.

"I could go in your place." Steven offered. His words broke the silence of the room, but the tension remained.

Yellow frowned and shook her head. "No. He trusts me the most. We're most likely to get a positive reaction if I'm the one who asks for his aid."

"The rebellion needs its figurehead." Steven said. He to was frowning, but unlike Yellow his was from worry.

Yellow responded to that easily. "I will only be gone for a week or two at most. Lance will be completing this mission with me, so there is little to no need to worry over my health. I'll be fine Steven." She clasped her hands in front of her on the desk and rested her chin on them. Slowly her cloudy eyes slid closed as she considered her options and reran her plan through her mind. "You can the rebellion by yourself for that long, and your years as champion have taught you how to lead spread out groups well. You are the only one I can ask Steven. We don't have a choice."

Steven nodded his assent, although with clear unhappiness on his face. "Verywell. I'll keep an eye on things while you're gone. Come back safe?"

"Of course." Yellow softly smiled. "To do otherwise would be to lose."

Her fingers brushed across the skin around her eyes. "I think I've lost enough as it is to this war."

"Of course." Steven smiled in response even though he knew she wouldn't see it.

"We'll do our best to ensure no one has to lose anything else."

A saddened look appeared on Yellow's face when she heard that. "We won't succeed." She pointed out. "This is war."

The two sighed in understanding before speaking together. "No matter who claims victory both sides always lose _something_ in a war."

Yellow glanced up with a grim look. "The only question is what."

**xXxXxXxXx**

"Sit down on the black one." Sliver told Blue as they strode into a small meeting room. The inside had three couches arranged in triangular fashion with a round table in the center. Blue went and sat on the black couch as directed while Silver closed and locked the door.

Gold was already settled on the grey couch that was to the left of Blue, and Sliver settled on the green one on her right a second later.

"Our mission," Sliver started, "is to go to the Rebellion base in Pallet Town and search out former gym leader Erika. We have a missive to give that cannot fall into Team Rocket's possession."

Gold leaned forward and looked Blue right in the eyes. "We are also asking her for help, so be really respectful to her. She's one of the best poison masters in Kanto and doesn't mind using them since her gym was burned to the ground."

"Erika was one of five survivors of the Celadon City Burning. It changed her quite a bit from what I've heard." Silver added.

Blue frowned in confusion. "What's the Celadon City Burning?"

"A massacre." Silver answered shortly. "Team Rocket locked the Celadon gym's doors and light it on fire."

Gold sighed and leaned onto the back of the couch. "The gym trainers could have left, but most were determined to help as many of their Pokémon escape as possible. Of the ten humans who made it out alive only five lived. Smoke inhalation, apparently."

"Over thirty people died that day." Silver said. "And only half the Pokémon who were in the gym made it out. Many of which had to be put down because of their burns."

Blue shifted uncomfortably and nodded. "Oh, I'm sorry that happened."

"It was just another act of war." Silver said coldly. "There are a dozen more story's just like that. This is what war means."

Gold sat up and glared at his lover. "Enough," he snapped. "Can we talk about something else? Like, does Blue need to be outfitted or not?"

"Right." Silver said. "We should take her to Anna then." In tandem the boys turned and looked at Blue with amused grins.

"What?" She asked hesitantly. "Who's Anna?"

"You'll see." Gold grinned slyly. "You'll definitely see."

**xXxXxXxXx**

Yellow watched the three adults sitting in her office with misty eyes. Of course she wasn't really watching them, but her eyes were pointed towards them and the blank stare was unnerving.

"Mission report?" Yellow asked calmly.

Maya shifted, but Dan placed his hand on her arm and shook his head. "The mission was completed successfully." He said. "We left the Cinnabar people to clean up the battle sights and transport the stones to their lab."

"Any problems?" Yellow tilted her head more towards Dan's voice as she spoke.

Dan sighed. "Yes. We ran into Admiral Melody. Maya eliminated the threat with an arrow through the gut, and she is confirmed dead. Several grunts and the Admiral's Hypno are also confirmed dead."

Maya made a choked noise when Dan spoke about Melody, but otherwise stayed silent.

"Agent Maya," Yellow said softly, "please take the next several days off. I'm sure Cinnabar will be willing to turn your cousin's body over to you for last rights. Why don't you go now? Your husband can handle the debrief."

Maya nodded. "Yes Ma'am. I will leave the main board of the computer from the mining machine with the technicians and go."

"Very well." Yellow nodded. maya then stood up and swept out of the room.

Dan sighed, but continued on. "The kids you gave us both seem to have made their first kills. I'd have them off missions for a couple of days to adjust. We also left a captive with the Cinnabar people. He's just a grunt so her won't know anything useful, but he's seen too much to be released."

"Of coarse." Yellow sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Anything else?"

Dan took a moment to think before responding. "The boy, Ruby, got back the Vulpix melody took from Nessa. It's been evolved into a ninetails. I sent one of the trainees out to release it with the rest of her pack. That's all My Lady."

"Orange?" Yellow asked. "Anything to add?"

Before the girl could speak up Yellow's office door opened. The Lavender Town Ruling Lady stepped into the room. "Yellow." She said respectfully as she curtsied. "You asked me to inform you of when I head out."

"Of course," Yellow said, "the team will be leaving today anyways. Hopefully you'll beat them there."

Danna gave another wobbly curtsied before standing and leaving the office.

"That reminds me..." Yellow murmured. "Orange, you can't see Red until after he returns from his next mission."

he girl glanced up and gaped. "But, what? Why not Yellow!?"

"You'll distract him." Yellow responded ruthlessly. "He'll be thinking of you rather than the mission. You could get him killed."

Orange pondered over that fact for a minute. She still looked rather upset, but in the end she nodded. "Only because I don't want him hurt." She said at last. "But I want to there to greet him when he gets back."

"Of course you can. I'm sure he'd like that." Yellow said. "If that's all then you can go now. Just send me in Ruby and Sapphire on the way in." It was clear that she was dismissing them all.

**xXxXxXxXx**

"Your Pokémon are all fit as a fiddle." The nurse said as she passed Lance back his Pokéballs. "Please bring them in to me after every fight, regardless of if they're injured or not. They should be checked on anyways. Thank you and good day."

Lance rolled his burgundy eyes at the clearly well rehearsed words before picking up his Pokéballs and leaving. Glancing down at the balls, he took a moment to ponder what Yellow's team would look like. Surely after three years she would have change the line up with some of them. Obviously Chuuchuu was still around, although she spent most of her time in Yellow's rooms.

The dragon trainer had gone about and asked all the higher ranking rebellion members, but most weren't sure what Yellow's team even looked like. Some didn't even know if she fought or not. Lance supposed she could get away with it. She was blind after all, although Lance was starting to wonder exactly how blind she was. She had an uncanny habit of turning towards any large movements in the room.

"Excuse me," Lance said to a woman walking by. She was wearing a lab coat that was splattered with dirt, and was carrying a bucket of root clippings. She was also one of the people he'd seen go in and out of Yellow's office several times a day, which meant she was pretty high up there in the rebellions ranks. "Can I ask you a question?"

The woman turned to face him and nodded. "So long as you understand that I don't have to answer." She quipped as she looked over him.

"How well do you know Yellow?" Lance asked.

The scientist shifted nervously. "Okayish, I guess. Why do you want to know?"

"I'm going on a mission with her later and I need to know her combat capabilities. Especially with her eyes." Lance shrugged.

The woman perked right up upon hearing that. "Oh, that's okay then! Lady Yellow is not completely blind, her vision is just very damaged. She once described what she can see as 'moving shapes in heavy fog' that she can never see the details of." The scientist shifted her bucket to her other hand and hummed lowely for a second. "Her Pokémon seem to fight with little to no guidance from her nowadays, but I'll assume that she has premade strategies worked out with them."

"Thank you, "Lance smiled politely at the woman before leaving. He had a lot to think about before his mission.

**xXxXxXxXx**

"Lady Danna has already left for the Lavender Town Rebellion Base." Ellenor sighed.

The three boys in the room with her turned to look at the bored prophet. Wally smiled at her from where he was packing up his bag. The green haired boy knew that Ellie was simply upset over having to let her friend return home alone. She always got like this when the blonde girl left. "We will leave when we are all packed." Wally reminded her while tightening the straps of his pack. "Packing is something that shouldn't be rushed."

Red and Green nodded along to this. The two trainers knew exactly how important packing things properly could be. Their trips around the world had taught them that at least. Failure to pack properly could spell your doom in an emergency, and one should always be prepared. You just couldn't rush things like that.

Green watched Ellie pout for a moment before speaking. "You friend will be more then fine. I'm sure of it."

Red nodded in agreement to that to before closing the straps on his bag and hefting it over his shoulders. Green was quick to follow. Wally, whose pack was slightly larger than the other two's, pulled his up on a table before using that to put it on.

"You don't have a pack." Red pointed out when Ellie stood up.

The redhead nodded, looking distracted. her eyes were unfocused as they lazily wandered about the room never settling on anyone or anything. "Can we go now?"

"You need your pack Ellie." Wally reminded her in a patient voice. "Did you leave it somewhere?"

Ellie's eyes suddenly sharpened as she turned to stare at Wally. "My pack is by the door we will be leaving from. We should go now. There are things to be done and many kilometers to travel before we get there." Then before anyone could speak, she whirled around and walked out of the room.

"Well," Wally said after a moment of awkward silence. "We should go after her then, I guess..." The three followed Ellie in a silent procession. They had a mission to do, after all.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Yellow listened to the two Hoenn natives sitting on the other side of her her desk. One was shifting constantly in their seat and kicking their feet out. The other was tapping their fingers in a steady rhythm on the arm of their chair.

"How are you both doing?" She asked quietly. Most teens wouldn't be able to handle killing someone, or watching someone be killed. By now enough time had passed for the adrenalin to wear off and the panic to set in. If one of them was going to break down it was going to be now.

The shifty one sighed. "I feel like I should feel bad, but I don't. Does that make me a bad person?" The voice was female, so it was Sapphire who was speaking.

"You what was necessary to stop Team Rocket." Yellow pointed out as she tilted her head towards the shifting noises. "Preventing them from getting those stones has severely lowered their destructive capabilities. You've saved lives today Sapphire."

The girl sighed. "That doesn't make me feel any better."

"It wasn't meant to. I was simply stating facts." Yellow smiled as she spoke. "But I know what will make you feel better. If you hurry you can catch Wally before he leaves for his next mission. Why don't you talk to him?"

The sounds of Sapphire murmuring a thank you and leaving the room met Yellow's ears. She smiled faintly as she was left alone with the tapping noises and their maker.

"I'm fine." Ruby said before she could ask. His voice was melancholy, but not stressed. "I know that it was necessary for victory. In war you do what you must to win."

Yellow gave a curt nod of her head at that. "We do it to dethrone a tyrant," she murmured, "but that does not excuse our crimes."

"I'll join," Ruby said after a moment of thought. "Any help I can offer is yours."

Yellow turned to face his direction. "Thank you, any help we can use is welcomed. I'll try not to ask you to do anything that breaks your moral code."

"That's pretty much all I can ask for, isn't it?" Ruby pondered before shrugging. "Oh well, just remember that being forced to be ugly definitely breaks my moral code."

Yellow chuckled at the rather flat joke. She understood that the boy was just trying to lighten the mood a little. "Duly noted," she told him with a grin. "Now get out of my office. I've got non beutiful things like paper work to do. That takes a while, considering we're a little short of eyes in here."

"Harsh," Ruby smirked as he walked towards the door. "I'll just leave you to all that paperwork before I get roped to helping out!"

Yellows smile slid off her face as she heard the door slide shut behind Ruby. As nice as joking around was she did have things to do. There were always more intelligence reports to read and missions to assign. Squaring her shoulders and taking a deep breath Yellow turned to her paperwork. She had a rebellion to run.

**xXxXxXxXx**

She'd gotten halfway through one stack of paperwork before the next interruption showed up. One of the double doors to her office creaked open and someone slid inside. The familiar tugging inside of her told her it was a child of the Viridian who had entered her office. "Hello Lance," she said softly, "is there something you need?" The redhead chuckled as he walked towards her. "A debriefing on our joint mission. Everyone else seems to be getting theirs, but I still have no clue what we are doing." "We're going up to the top of Mount Silver and retrieving a member of my rebellion." Yellow explained as she ran her fingers over another piece of paperwork. "Since the fighting is picking back up we need all of the team leaders back with their men." Lance settled down beside her; sitting on the side of her desk with relative ease. "Makes sense," he said, "I'm assuming this one needs to be retrieved by you personally?" "Yes, he doesn't like most people." Yellow seemed to stare off into space for a moment before smiling. "You and he are rather similar, actually. I think you'll get along well." She signed the paper in her hand with an easy flick of her wrist. "Mhmm..." Lance hummed low in his throat as he leant over her. "Competition? You know I'll win Yellow. No matter how many obstacles you throw at me I'll keep trying until you either pick or reject me." The Queen flushed as she felt his body heat and realised exactly how close he was. "N-no, he and I are just friends. And besides, what makes you think I'll let you win?" The dragon tamer's voice rumbled pleasantly when he laughed at her. "Really Yellow? The fact that you are even allowing this game between us proves that I'll eventually win." His red eyes flared in triumph as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. "I'm just chasing you to make my victory sweeter. We both know that I'll be your consort soon enough My Queen." With that said Lance stood back up and swept out of the room. The door clicked shut behind him leaving Yellow to sit at her desk alone. The Queen shuddered and licked her lips slowly. Her amber eyes slid over the closed door and the walls around before she closed them. "That's not very fair Lance." She murmured to herself. "What fun is a chase if the prey knows they are going to lose?" "Besides," She allowed a slow and rather mischievous smile to slide across her face. "This time the prey has teeth, and is just getting ready to use them."

**xXxXxXxXx**

Lance stalked down the hall and away from Yellow's office with a smug smirk on his face. That should have gotten her riled up enough to fight back a little more actively. After all, what fun is a hunt if the prey just lies down and gives up?

Oh no. Lance wanted Yellow to fight tooth and nail against him in this game they had turned their courtship into. Even if he messed up again he'd win in the end. The pull between them was simply too strong to ignore.

Besides, all the time they'd been spending together meant that Lance know knew her much better than any of the Pokédex holders did. Reality was Yellow was both comfortable with him and attracted to fit well together and he'd already proven that he could help her lead the rebellion. Entering a formal relationship was just that, a formality. They would be together in the end anyway.

Of course the war could make that end much soon than anticipated, but Lance had plans for even then. He wouldn't allow anything to get in the way of what he wanted. Except Yellow of course. Everything hinged on her excepting him. Somehow that flaw didn't worry the champion at all. She would chose him in the end. Lance was sure of that at least.

He'd made it so she simply had to.

**xXxXxXxXx**

"Hey Saph, wait up for a minute would you?" Ruby asked the brunette when he caught up to her. She frowned at him but slowed her pace.

"Can we hurry this? Wally will be leaving soon." "Yeah, I'll be quick."

Ruby grinned. "I just wanted to say that you should ask him out."

Sapphire practically did a double take. She did come to a screeching halt in the middle of the hall and gape at her friend. "What? Ruby, what about your father?"

"I don't really care anymore. It was very rude of me to ask you to fake being my partner anyways." Ruby shrugged calmly, but there was an embarrassed flush on his face. "Besides my dad isn't here. And if he has a problem with my life choices then I don't need him anyways. Ignorance is definitely an ugly trait."

Faint voices coming from a nearby hallway caught their attention made the two look up. Recognising the voices Ruby smiled before nodding to Sapphire. "He's up ahead Saph. Go get him."

She shot him a grateful look before racing up the hall to jump on the green haired boy who had just come into view. Wally only had a moment to notice who had collided with him before Sapphire pulled him forwards and kissed him soundly. The boys green eyes widened in shock before sliding over to Ruby in horror. Clearly worried that his friend was going to pull an angry boyfriend on him.

Smirking in amusement Ruby nodded to him and gave his friend a thumbs up. The shock that appeared on Wally's face was hilarious, and Ruby had to struggle not to laugh at his friends confusion. He made a shooing motion and gave the back of Sapphire's head a pointed look. Sudden understanding flooded Wally at the gestures. Pulling Sapphire closer he nodded to Ruby in thanks before kissing her back. She sunk against him at the response and smiled softly.

"Please come back safe." She said as they separated.

Wally nodded before looking over at Ruby and smiling. "With incentive like that why wouldn't I?" Ruby grinned back before being distracted by a movement in the corner of his eye.

The strange woman who had come back with them from Cinnabar Island was peaking around the corner. Ruby watched her give Red a long look over before shaking her head and disappearing back down the hallway she was in. Frowning thoughtfully he watched her go before shrugging. Probably a fangirl, he thought. Kanto was Red's home region and Red probably had lots of them. Whatever it was it wasn't any of his business.

"I'm off to visit Steven." Ruby announced as he turned and left. Sapphire nodded lazily and Wally waved goodbye, but the two lovebirds didn't look away from each other. Ruby snorted as he kept walking. Hopefully that wore off in time. There was no way anyone as fabulous as him was going to end up third wheeling just because he'd set up his friends together. He had so much better things to do with his time than that. LIke chat with Steven. Maybe if he was lucky the former champion would agree to another bout of swordsmanship?

One could only hope.

**xXxXxXxXx**

Lance's eyes widened comically when he noticed Yellow walking towards him. She was in a rather tight fitting combat outfit with a small pack on her back. Chuuchuu raced along beside her as they came to settle by the door.

"I know it's a little form fitting." Yellow said sheepishly when she heard Lance move. "But loose cloths can get stuck on rocks or things, and I can't see where it gets snagged to unstick it."

Red eyes slid to half mast as Lance pondered this new information. "Then why do you a dress around the rebellion base?"

Yellow rolled her eyes. "That was Steven's idea. He said that i would have to 'look every inch the Queen I was labeled as' to run the rebellion properly." She shrugged before gesturing for them to keep walking. "Besides, I'm not climbing on rocks and wandering across battlefields inside the base. All I have to worry about is being caught in a door or something."

The great Viridian's Queen defeated by a door." Lance said with a laugh. Yellow playfully pouted in response.

"They are rather tricky enemies you know. They seal their grabby little frames shut far too quick for poor defenceless maidens like myself."

"I have trouble believing you've ever been defenceless." Lance admitted after a moment. "Not since you got your Pokémon anyways."

The two walked together in silence for a moment as Yellow pondered that comment. They had walked out of Viridian City and were heading down a winding path through the forest when she chose to speak again. "I'd say that right until we fought I was pretty defenceless. I was so determined to see the good in people that I didn't like fighting anyone."

She sighed. "Fighting you taught me that sometimes violence was necessary. I reminded me that even if most people could be redeemed some couldn't." She was silent for a moment more before she turned to face Lance and smiled at him.

"I'm glad." She told him earnestly. "I'm glad that you've redeemed yourself. I really wouldn't want to be facing you in this fight too."

"Well..." Lance shot her a teasing smirk. "One could say that I turned sides after learning a lesson from a little blond girl on a volcano." There was a shared smile between them before the two continued on their path. For the moment though, everything was well.

**xXxXxXxXx**


End file.
